It would have come like a great relief to Sri Lanka Cricket, its cricketers and cricket fans in the country when Sri Lanka finally broke the string of defeats they had undergone for the past 13 months to win the one-day tri-nation series hosted by Bangladesh.
The team didn’t commence the tournament well losing the opening two matches to Zimbabwe and to Bangladesh before regrouping to reel off three consecutive wins that included victory in the final against Bangladesh.
No doubt Bangladesh were the favourites at the start of the tournament having home advantage and also their track record at home in the last two years being imposing – 13 wins out of 18 ODIs.
The manner in which Bangladesh started suggested they meant business and were keen to win their first-ever tri-nation title at home. Sri Lanka on the other hand had lost so often and reached the bottom of the pit that the only way for them was up.
 Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal leading run scorer |
This they did in style as they beat Zimbabwe in the return game and then accounted for Bangladesh twice in back to back contests to eventually win the tournament and break the curse that had been haunting them for the past one year or so.
The win meant a lot to the players and the supporting staff who have been working their butts off trying to turn the mounting losses into wins but with little success.
To some extent Bangladesh were somewhat unlucky that their super-star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan suffered a finger injury while fielding and could not bat when his team was chasing 222 to win in the final. Bangladesh were eventually bowled out for 142 in the 42nd over to hand to Sri Lanka a 79-run win.
There wasn’t any outstanding batting performances because except for the first three matches of the tournament the rest of the pitches prepared were very much on the slower side and more bowler oriented making life difficult for the batsmen. The average run rate achieved for the tournament by the three teams was 4.28 runs per over – hardly a figure to arouse excitement when scoring 300 plus in an innings in today’s context is the common norm.
By preparing such pitches the host country only deprived their spectators from witnessing a good contest between bat and ball. One-day cricket is all about batting and hitting boundaries and sixes but the pitches didn’t encourage that sort of contest and for most part of the innings the batsmen struggled to get the ball off the square.
The scores in the second half of the tournament i.e. the last four matches give a clear indication of the battle the batsmen had with the pitch - the highest total achieved was 221 by Sri Lanka in the final.
Perhaps the pitches were prepared to favour the home side, but if that was the case it certainly backfired on them for Sri Lanka out thought Bangladesh to pull off a heist with the help of course from their new coach Chandika Hathurusingha who had been the brains behind Bangladesh’s rise to fame in cricket over the past three years.
Playing 22-year-old rookie fast bowler Shehan Madushanka in a match as big as the final was a master stroke by Hathurusingha who has identified the potential of this cricketer and is targeting him for the 2019 World Cup in England. Madushanka didn’t disappoint but covered himself with glory by becoming only the fourth bowler in ODI history to perform the hat-trick on debut.
Sri Lanka’s success was not attributed to just one player but it was an excellent team effort. However the stand out player from Sri Lanka’s view point was Thisara Perera who was named Player of the Series for his 134 runs and 11 wickets in the tournament.
An outstandingly talented cricketer with bat and ball Perera has failed to fulfill that rare talent of his consistently on the international stage and has been in and out of the national team. However in this tournament he seems to have sorted out his shortcomings and proved a match winner for his team with his powerful hitting and fast-medium bowling which he has improved vastly to turn out to be a match-winner for his side. Perera named Man of the Series gave credit to fast bowling coach Rumesh Ratnayake for his improvement as a wicket-taking bowler.
Perera’s 11 wickets were the most taken by any bowler in the series.
Tamim Iqbal the Bangladesh opener stood head and shoulders above the rest of the batting being the only batsman to top 200 runs and score three half-centuries. All-rounder Sikander Raza was Zimbabwe’s leading run scorer with 181 runs while for Sri Lanka Upul Tharanga and Dinesh Chandimal scored 140 plus apiece.
The state of the pitches prepared didn’t allow a batsman to get into three-figures the highest effort coming from Tamim who twice reached 84 against Zimbabwe as well as Sri Lanka.
On the bowling front Bangladesh had four bowlers capturing five wickets or more, the best effort coming from pacer Rubel Hossain and Shakib Al Hasan with nine wickets apiece.
Although Zimbabwe began with a 12-run win over Sri Lanka they could not sustain that pace and it was not surprising they lost their next three games failing to come to terms with the slow subcontinent surfaces as well as letting the game slip away at crucial phases.
With three other cricket series taking place around the world at the same time – India v South Africa, England v Australia and Pakistan v New Zealand in addition to the Under 19 Cricket World Cup in New Zealand, there was little interest in the Bangladesh tri-series that featured the 7th (Bangladesh), 8th (Sri Lanka) and 10th (Zimbabwe) ranked teams.
However it was good enough for Sri Lanka to turn their fortunes in one-day cricket into winning ways after going through a horrendous 2017.
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