Sri Lanka crush Bangladesh in Asia Cup opener. Seven wicket win suggests India- Sri Lanka final.-BY TREVINE RODRIGO IN MELBOURNE. (eLanka Sports Editor)
Sri Lanka started their Asia Cup campaign in commanding form dispatching Bangladesh to record a 7-wicket win in Dambulla.
Sri Lanka and India are the in-form teams in the Asian region and both have shown that they are the teams to beat in their respective groups.
India are sitting pretty at the top of their group with two wins over Pakistan and UAE and unless things go pear shaped, Sri Lanka should get through their group on current form.
India needs to beat Nepal to move to the next stage while Sri Lanka having a resounding win over Bangladesh have Thailand and Malaysia ahead of them in what looks like a tantalising India- Sri Lanka final if things go to plan.
Keeping their heads and not getting ahead of themselves will be key to Sri Lanka’s aspirations to meet the high riding Indians who are one of the best outfits in the world.
Sri Lanka’s progress under head coach Rumesh Ratnayake and his team has signalled to the rest of the world that they are a serious challenger to anyone. They have shed the one dimensional image around skipper Chamari Athapaththu on whose batting, their fortunes were centered around.
Their batting, bowling and fielding has improved in leaps and bounds in an all-round capacity, meaning that Athapaththu’s failure, lifts the team a few gears.
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This was the case against Bangladesh chasing a mediocre total when prolific opening batter Vishmi Gunaratne, 51 off 48 balls, spearheaded the chase and with Harshita Samarawickrema, 33 and Kavisha Dilhari chased down the target without too much trouble.
Earlier, Sri Lanka’s bowlers did an excellent job to restrict Bangladesh to 211 for 8 with pacies Priyadharshani 2 for 17 and Prabodhani 2 for 20 bowling immaculate spells to make the target gettable for their batters.
