The Najmul Shanto Hossain led side won a tricky contest against Sri Lanka in the 3rd ODI. Bangladesh won the match by 4 wickets as they chased down 236 runs with more than 9 overs left in the match. It seemed that Bangladesh had a particular gameplan as from the start they didn’t allow the island nation to comeback into the game.
Sri Lankan fans would be dejected as their national cricket team didn’t put up a fight and the lightning spark and the never to say die attitude was missing. Sri Lanka who aren’t a part of ICC Champions Trophy 2025, will once again have to go back to the drawing board and figure out like what went wrong for them after winning a thriller in the 2nd ODI.
Disappointing performance by Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka had won the toss and had elected to bat first and that decision backfired. The pacers were getting ample help from the surface as in the powerplay overs they scored 39 runs for the loss of 2 wickets. It looked as if the batters were in a hurry to assert their dominance due to which the visitors were in a spot of bother at 136-6 in 21 overs.
It was the sheer brilliance of Janith Liyanage who struck a brilliant ton and helped Sri Lanka set a target of 236 runs. The spinner Wanindu Hasaranga should have shown some sort of resistance on a tricky surface as his wicket proved to be the turning point of the match as another 30 odd runs would have made the difference.
Bangladesh’s bowling attack on a roll
Bangladesh’s bowlers hunted in a pack and most importantly they didn’t allow any batter to dictate the terms. Taskin Ahmed was the pick of the bowlers who took a 3 wicket haul and conceded 42 runs in his 10 over spell. Bangladesh’s bowling unit bowled immaculate line & lengths and made life harder for batters by bowling wicket to wicket.
Sensible batting by Bangladesh
Bangladesh’s openers got the team to a rollicking start as Anamul Haque and Tanzid Hasan smashed 50 runs in 8.2 overs as Sri Lanka’s skipper Kusal Mendis missed a trick by not giving the new ball to Lahiru Kumara. Kusal’s strategy was quite confusing as holding back Lahiru Kumara gave Bangladesh pretty good decent start.
Tanzid Hasan played a magnificent knock of 84 runs in 81 balls and struck 9 fours and 4 sixes. Bangladesh almost made a mess of the run chase as they were 178 for the loss of 6 wickets inside 37 overs. as the lethal speedster Lahiru Kumara was on fire who took 4 wickets and brought Sri Lanka back into the game.
Rishad Hossain’s breath-taking cameo
Rishad Hossain against all odds played a blinder of a knock of 48 runs in 18 balls and struck 5 fours and 4 gigantic sixes. In the 40th over, Rishad Hossain took the attack against Wanindu Hasaranga and smashed 24 runs in that over which completely changed the course of the match. Hasaranga was quite shell shocked as all his variations were proving to be ineffective.
The slow left arm spinner Dunith Wellalage wasn’t amongst the wickets which hurt the team and also the mystery spinner Maheesh Theekshana was wicket-less. Sri Lanka would be utterly disappointed with their performance as they missed a golden opportunity to beat Bangladesh in their back-yard.