Yesterday the second match of Asia Cup 2023 was easily a one-sided match. The bowling attack of the Sri Lankans was far ahead of the batting standards of the Bangladeshi batters. Their bowling performance completely outclassed the batting of Bangladesh.
Even among the Bangladeshi batters, Najmul Shanto was able to play one of the best knocks of his career. But he was not able to get the support from the other end. The total team score of Bangladesh was 164 runs, and out of that, Shanto alone scored 89 runs. This shows his lone battle. The main damage of the Bangladeshi innings was done by Matheesha Pathirana from Bangladesh. He turned out to be the spearhead of the bowling unit.
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Contribution of the Matheesha Pathirana
Matheesha Pathirana was certainly the best bowler from the Sri Lankan bowling unit. He proved to be more effective than anybody else. He got 4 wickets in the match, by only bowling 7.4 overs. He was also very economical, as he maintained an economy of 4.20 runs per over.
- The first wicket of Pathirana was the captain of the Bangladesh team, Shakib Al Hasan. Shakib got out cheaply at a score of 5 runs.
- The second wicket was of the wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim, the wicketkeeper of the Bangladeshi team. He was able to score only 13 runs off 22 balls. He could have been dangerous later on in the game.
- At the time, only two wickets were needed by the Sri Lankan team to win the match, those two wickets were easily taken by Pathirana. He got the wicket of Taskin Ahmed, and Mustafizur too, to finish off the game.
Sri Lanka didn’t get a good start, as they lost their first two wickets only at a score of 15 runs. Even the third wicket fell at the score of 43. It was the partnership between Samarawickrama, and Asalanka that took the score from 43 to 121 runs.
However, this is only the beginning of the Asia Cup 2023, and it is tough to anticipate the performance of any team from here.
