Sri Lanka tour of Bangladesh 2024 (Second T20I)
Head: Bangladesh level series 1-all
In the second T20I match in Sylhet, Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto played a brilliant innings, scoring a fifty to lead his team to an 8-wicket victory over Sri Lanka.
Bangladesh first restricted Sri Lanka to a total of 165 for 5, and then successfully chased down the target with 8 wickets in hand.
Bangladesh got off to a strong start in their chase, with Soumya Sarkar and Litton Das aggressively taking on the Sri Lankan bowlers. They scored 63 runs in the powerplay and went on to form a partnership of 68 runs for the first wicket. However, there was a controversial moment when Soumya Sarkar was given not-out by the third umpire, despite what appeared to be an edge back to the wicketkeeper.
After this incident, Sarkar continued to play aggressively and scored runs freely. The partnership between Towhid Hridoy and Najmul Hossain Shanto, who scored 53 runs, proved to be crucial in securing the victory for Bangladesh. Captain Najmul Hossain Shanto was the highest scorer for his team and played a key role in guiding them to victory.
Sri Lanka, having been asked to bat first, faced a challenging start as Avishka Fernando struggled against Shoriful Islam in the opening over and eventually departed in the second over. Kamindu Mendis then entered the field at number 3 and made an impressive start. The pair went on to score runs freely during the middle overs. Kusal Mendis and Kamindu Mendis contributed 66 runs for the second wicket. However, the visitors lost three quick wickets, but a valuable partnership of 53 runs towards the end helped them achieve a competitive total.
With the exception of Avishka Fernando and Sadeera Samarawickrama, all the other batsmen got off to decent starts but failed to capitalize on them by scoring big runs. The bowling performance from Bangladesh was commendable as they stuck to their plans and bowled in the challenging channel with variations. Mahedi Hasan, Soumya Sarkar, and Mustafizur Rahman each took a wicket.
Brief Scores:
Sri Lanka 165/5 Kamindu 37, Kusal 36; Taskin 1-38) lost to Bangladesh 170/2 in 18.1 overs (Shanto 53*; Pathirana 2-28) by 9 wickets.
