Bangladesh won their second match in the ongoing ODI World Cup 2023, defeating Sri Lanka by a margin of three wickets. Pathum Nissanka gave Sri Lanka a strong start when batting first, but the Lankan Lions lost wickets quickly. After calming everyone down, Charith Asalanka went on to score a century and help Sri Lanka score 279 runs. In the meantime, there was a lot of commotion around Angelo Matthews’ firing. Shakib Al Hasan, the captain of Bangladesh, appealed against him being late to the crease, making him the first player to be timed out in international cricket history.
In the chase, Madushanka once more secured significant wickets in the powerplay, but the dynamic between Shakib and Najmul Shanto altered the course of the match.
After they both scored 82 and 90 runs, Bangladesh won the match by a margin of three wickets.
Asalanka Charith’s century
Asalanka was just the person Sri Lanka needed to step up in the middle overs. With everyone else laboring, his century helped Sri Lanka achieve a respectable total. His century may not have been useful to the squad, but it should boost his confidence moving ahead.
Shakib’s overall effectiveness
Shakib Al Hasan, the captain of Bangladesh, took two wickets and made 82 significant runs at bat. The Bangla Tigers were victorious thanks to his all-around performance, and they are now ranked seventh in the ODI World Cup points standings. They may be able to win the 2025 Champions Trophy because to this.
Najmul Shanto‘s dependability
When it comes to the ODI format of the game, Najmul Shanto has shown remarkable consistency. He once again lived up to the occasion and performed admirably to help Bangladesh win the match pretty easily against Sri Lanka.
Losing skipper Kusal Mendis said:
Charith played a brilliant knock. But we were 30-40 runs short. Happy that some good young players coming through, and happy we have shown some promise in this tournament. In the future we’ll have a good team. We had injuries to main players, also did some mistakes. Had we played better cricket, we would’ve had a better chance. It’s very disappointing – when Angelo came to the crease. There were 5 second left. Then he found out strap of the helmet came off. It’s disappointing umpires couldn’t step in and make correct decision.
Winning skipper Shakib Al Hasan said:
When I won toss, didn’t have any hesitation to bowl. We’ve trained here and know there’s a lot of dew. It was a very good partnership, and would’ve loved to finish it off. One of our fielders came to me and said if you appeal now it’ll be out. Then I appealed and umpire asked me if I’m serious. It’s in the laws. I don’t know it’s right or wrong. I had to take decision to make sure my team wins. Right or wrong, there will be debates. That helped. I’m 36 and fight doesn’t come so easily.
POTM Shakib Al Hasan said:
They are two important players (Mendis and Samarawickrama), lucky to get those two wickets., There wasn’t much for the bowlers, we bowled really well upfront. Spinners kept it tight. Both the spinners bowled really well. Bowling wins us more matches, fast bowlers were bowling really well up to the World Cup. We couldn’t live up to our expectations but we knew that we can fight back, we had that mentality.
We kept on believing and we kept on coming back and today it paid off. The ground dimension helped as well, the shorter boundary, there was a lot of pace on the ball, so I just had to use the pace, luckily it came off and from there on I never looked back. (Best performance came a little late?) I’d agree with that, we could have been consistent, that’s one disappointment.
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