Bangladesh to play Pakistan in Asia Cup Final

Host Bangladesh have qualified for the final of the 2012 Asia Cup for the first time in their cricketing history after beating Srilanka in the last of the league fixtures on Tuesday, March 20. This was only the second time when the Bengal Tigers defeated
any two test playing nations in one tournament, having also upstaged India in their previous game.

The last time when Bangladesh defeated two test playing countries was during the 2007 World Cup when they got better of India and South Africa.

It was a must-win game for Bangladesh in order to qualify for the final else it would have been India-Pakistan final on Thursday, March 22. On the other hand, Srilanka were only playing for their pride as they were already knocked out after losing to India
and Pakistan in their previous two outings. Lanka’s loss threw the world champions out of the competition who worked so hard to chase 330 runs against Pakistan and still crashed out.

Mushfiqur Rahim won the toss and put Lanka into bat. The top order failed miserably as Mahela Jayawardena, Tillikaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara added just 32 runs for the first three wickets. Chamara Kapugedera and Lahiru Thirimanne added 88 runs for
the fourth wicket before the latter got stumped for a patient 48.

Upul Tharanga added 49 for the fifth wicket with Kapugedera before Abdul Razzak got Kapugedera caught by Shakib Al Hasan for 62. Farveez Maharoof’s brief stay was ended by Shakib as he was caught behind for 3.

Srilanka’s tail somehow pushed their score to 232, setting the hosts 233 to win from their 50 overs. However, rain came on and curtailed the innings to 40 overs with the Bengalis needing 212 to win.

Nazimuddin once again failed to provide his team with a better start and got cleaned up by Nuwan Kulasekara for 6. Tamim Iqbal and Jahurul Islam added 31 for the second wicket before Islam was picked by Suranga Lakmal for 2.

Mushfiq also failed to prolong his stay with Tamim and made just 1 before perishing to Kulasekara, reducing the hosts to 40/3. Shakib once again proved handy in the middle-order and made 56 of 46 balls, adding 74 for the fourth wicket with Tamim.

In the meantime, Tamim completed his third successive half century of the tournament and was out for 59, leaving the home side stranded at 135/5. Nasir Hossain and Mahmudullah Riad played sensibly and absorbed all the pressure as the pair remained unbeaten
and took Bangladesh over the line. Hossain stayed not-out on 36 and Mahmudullah on 32.

Shakib received his second Man of the Match award in as many games and will next meet Pakistan for the second time in this tournament, this time in the grand finale. It will be quite surprising for the readers but the fact is that Bangladesh will start as
favourites against an unpredictable Pakistani side, who managed a 20-run win over the spirited Tigers.

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Posted by Taha Habib on Mar 21 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry