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Tharanga's ton
enables victory for SL over Bangladesh |
October 7, 2006 (Link to
Scorecard)
Lankan lions won the opening game of this
edition of the Champions Trophy at Mohali by
comprehensively beating minnows Bangladesh by 37
runs. The victory margin may not be too huge but
Bangladesh were never in the race chasing Sri
Lanka's 302. It was the 21-year-old Upul
Tharanga who was instrumental in Sri Lanka's win
today as he notched up his 5th ODI hundred
playing just his 30th match which also saw him
get the Man of the Match award. Sri Lankans have
shown that they have the strength in batting and
bowling along with their electric fielding to be
one of the hot favourites to win the Trophy.
This of course is just the preliminary round
where two of the four teams - Sri Lanka, West
Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe make it to the
main draw.
The pitch for the day had grass on it and it was
a dream wicket for the pacers as there was all
the pace and extra bounce that they could
extract. The coin had rolled in Habibul Bashar's
favour and he opted to take the field as his
bowling attack mainly comprised of slow bowlers
who would have found it tough to grip the ball
in the second half once the dew takes its toll.
For Sri Lanka, Marvan Atapattu found a place in
the side after a long lay off from a serious
back injury. He was kept in the middle order
with Sri Lanka sticking to the pair of Tharanga
and Jayasuriya to open. It was a cautious start
from the two lefties as they spent some time
gauging the wicket conditions before launching
into the inexperienced Bangladeshi bowlers.
Sri Lanka were going along steadily at 67 for no
loss in the 14th over when they had lost Sanath
Jayasuriya trapped in front of the stumps by a
late inswinger from left armer Syed Rasel. By
then Jayasuriya had got 31 from 46 balls with
five hits to the ropes. Skipper Mahela
Jayawardene was the no.3 and he meant business
right from the beginning of his innings as he
made good use of the Powerplay blocks along with
Tharanga. Mahela Jayawardene was looking ominous
but his innings was cut short by a full blooded
sweep off Razzak that went straight to the short
mid wicket fielder. The Lankan skipper had raced
away to a 24-ball 35 which had 6 fours and a six
over fine leg. Sri Lankans had the perfect
platform at 130 for 2 after 22 overs. Upul
Tharanga and Kumar Sangakkara (22) built around
a useful partnership of 63 before the latter had
chipped Rafique straight to long on. The new man
in was Atapattu and he got going soon by picking
up the spots where he could get the boundaries.
Upul Tharanga went past his 5th hundred and this
was out of eight scores of fifty plus in his
short career. He was finally dismissed after
failing to connect a slog off Mortaza but by
then had scored 105 from 129 balls with 11 fours
and a six. Atapattu soon followed him after
making almost a run-a-ball 40 with 7 boundaries.
With some good lusty hitting towards the end,
Sri Lanka finished at 302 for 8 with Dilshan
unbeaten on 26. The two Bangladeshi left arm
spinners Rafique (10-037-1) and Razzak
(10-0-49-2) were decent enough to put the brakes
on the scoring.
Bangladesh opened up with two of its most
promising batsmen in Shahriar Nafees and
Mohammad Ashraful who were tied down by accurate
new ball bowling from Vaas and Malinga. Nafees
soon gave away edging Vaas to a diving
Sangakkara after scratching around for 22 balls
making just 5. Ashraful who was slow as well was
caught down the legstump by Sangakkara off
Maharoof after making 18 from 43 balls. Aftab
Ahmed, the no.3 entertained a while with his
glorious flicks which also included a six over
square leg off the pacy Dilhara Fernando. But
Aftab's innings of 33 from 31 balls was nothing
more than a cameo and he was bounced out by
Maharoof who got the ball to climb up awkwardly
to induce a top edge in Aftab's hook. Two balls
later, Maharoof had forced Habibul Bashar to
fend his rising delivery into the slips without
any addition of the score which was now 78 for 4
in the 19th over.
There was a sparkling partnership that followed
between the left handed Saqibul Hasan and Farhad
Reza that gave some reason to watch the
otherwise one-sided affair. Farhad Reza had come
along as a breath of fresh air and he does look
to be an exciting talent. Farhad's innings was
also a short one like Aftab's and he was stumped
off Murali after making 34. The rest of the
match was just a formality to be done and the
stubborn Saqibul dragged the match till the very
end and all Bangladesh achieved was that of
batting out their entire overs without getting
bowled out. They had ended up at 265 for 9 with
Saqibul unbeaten on 69 from 107 deliveries.
Farveez Maharoof had taken three wickets and he
along with Dilhara Fernando looked extremely
dangerous in exploiting the hard nature of this
Mohali wicket. Both bowlers got plenty of lift
but they were often erratic in their direction
in particular Dilhara Fernando. Sri Lanka had
given away 34 extra runs out of which were 21
wides! The opening bowlers Chaminda Vaas and
Lasith Malinga were economical compared to these
two bowlers. Muralitharan and Jayasuriya had
just got through their overs without much impact
on the batsmen as they couldn't grip the ball
properly as it got wet every time it ran across
the outfield.
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