1st Match Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka Live Streaming at Dhaka
Three subcontinent teams usher in the new year with a tri-series at the Shere Bangla stadium in Mirpur. Lengthy rest periods are rare in the international calendar these days. Barely a week after leaving India’s shores – a tour that stretched them physically as well as mentally – Sri Lanka are back at the departure terminal. They’ve made sweeping changes to their team, leaving out Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralitharan, in a bid to set their combination right and make amends for what happened in India.
It’s clear they are a better team than what we saw in India. Their misfortune was that their bowlers couldn’t figure out a way to restrict the batsmen on run-heavy pitches. Their outing against Bangladesh tomorrow will not be as taxing, but it won’t be a walk in the park either. Their tour of the country last year will be remembered for the one-dayer they lost to Shakib Al Hasan’s brilliance with the bat and the tri-series final they nearly lost after being reduced to an embarrassing 5 for 6. The plan is simple, at least on paper – get a win in the bag against the weakest team in the competition, before facing upto the strongest.
The one aspect that could go against Bangladesh in this series is their lack of match practice over the last two months. The locals will look forward to this series for one good reason, to see if their team can carry forward their form from 2009 (14 wins out of 19) against tougher opposition. Victories against Zimbabwe and a second-string West Indies team may have inflated those numbers a big way, but at least they were richer for the experience of winning.