Bangladesh won their 100th Test against Sri Lanka by 4 wickets.
They went into the tea break at 156 for 4, requiring a further 35 to complete the chase. Mehedi Miraz and Mushfiqur Rahim were the unbeaten batsmen at the crease.
Resuming on 38 for two after lunch, Tamim and Sabbir counter-attacked with several high-percentage shots. When they were not launching into lavish drives and reverse-sweeps, they banked heavily on singles and twos. Most importantly, the bedrock was their defensive technique against quality bowling, a factor easily ignored by Bangladeshi batsmen in similar situations.
As tension mounted at the P Sara Oval, Sri Lanka made two incisions soon after setting Bangladesh 191 runs to level the series.
Rangana Herath removed Soumya Sarkar and Imrul Kayes off consecutive deliveries in the eighth over before Tamim Iqbal and Sabbir Rahman calmed Bangladesh’s innings till the lunch interval. Tamim was unbeaten on 22 while Sabbir was batting on 6.
Soumya holed out at long-off, an unneeded, cavalier shot. Next ball, Imrul edged to slip and Sri Lanka were on top.
After resuming on 268 for 8, Dilruwan Perera and Suranga Lakmal extended their ninth-wicket stand to 80 runs. There were some chances created with Mustafizur nailing accurate cutters and Shakib Al Hasan getting the ball to dart into the pads. The partnership ended through a run-out when Perera took off for a run after Subashis Roy had misfielded the ball at square leg. But he had already struck his second successive fifty, this one ending after 174 balls.
Lakmal fell after getting 42 off 48 with four boundaries, holing out at long-off to give Shakib his fourth wicket.
Source: The Daily Ittefaq
