2018 Asia Cup: Three things you might have missed in Bangladesh's innings against Sri Lanka
Asia Cup 2018 is off to a fantastic start as Bangladesh ended up scoring in 261 in 49.3 overs, thanks to a well-made century from Mushfiqur Rahim and a fifty from Mohammad Mithun.
After Lasith Malinga picked up two early wickets to have Bangladesh tottering at 1/2 after the first over with their openers Liton Das, Tamim Iqbal (retired hurt) and Shakib-al-Hasan already back in the hit, Mushfiqur and Mithun pulled things back as they put on a 132-run partnership for the third wicket in just over 24 overs before Mithun's inexperience cost his wicket as he took on Malinga, who just came back to break the partnership.
He tried to hit the pacer out of the park and ended up skying the ball straight to the wicketkeeper Kusal Perera for 63. Experienced batsman Mahmudullah had a brain fade as he went for a wild shot off Aponso offering Dhananjaya de Silva a simple catch. 134/2 soon became 142/5 as Malinga had Mosaddek Hossain caught behind for just 1.
It was all on Mushfiqur to bat with the tail and take Bangladesh to a good total and the 31-year-old exactly did that as he stitched together a 33-run stand for the sixth wicket with Mehidy Hasan (15) and a 20-run stand with skipper Mashrafe Mortaza (11) and helped his team go past 200.
He brought up his sixth ODI century with a tickle down the legs for a boundary. He was the last man to be dismissed with a score of 144 off 150 balls with 11 fours and four sixes and helped his team set Sri Lanka a target of 230, which is a competitive score considering the Bangladeshi bowling unit.
For Sri Lanka, Lasith Malinga was the pick of the bowlers as he ended up with figures of 4/23 in his 10 overs. Let us take a look three things you might have missed in the Bangladesh innings.
Sri Lanka's brilliant strategy to dismiss Shakib al Hasan
It has been over one year since Lasith Malinga last played an international match and the right-arm quick came back to international cricket in style as he took two wickets in two balls in his first over in over 365 days.
First, he had Liton Das caught at slips with a brilliant outswinger before he foxed Bangladesh's star all-rounder Shakib-al-Hasan with a brilliant yorker. Shakib, before facing his first ball, took a look at the field that was set for him. There was a leg slip in place for the left-hander and with such a field placement, any batsman would have expected a short delivery.
The case is no different with Shakib but Malinga pulled off a double bluff and executed a perfect yorker that caught Shakib off-guard as the ball went through the massive gap between Shakib's bat and pad and uprooted the stumps.