Asia Cup 2018: Bangladesh and Afghanistan through to the Super Four, Sri Lanka is Knocked Out
Details of the Format of 2018 Asia Cup Tournament
The 14th edition of the Asia Cup started in UAE from 15th September 2018. The six participating nations in this edition of the Asia Cup are India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Hong Kong.
The six teams have been divided into two groups of three teams each.
Group A: India, Pakistan, Hong Kong
Group B: Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan
The top two teams from each group will be progressing to the Super Four. After playing each other in the Super Four, the top two teams from the Super Four will go on to play the final match, which is scheduled on 28th of September 2018.
Sri Lanka's Performance in the Asia Cup
Sri Lanka has been the 2nd most successful team in the history of Asia Cup, after India. They have won the tournament five times and have been runners up six times in the 13 editions, held so far.
Although the performance of the Sri Lankan team has been inconsistent over the last few years, they still came into this year's Asia Cup as one of the favourites.
With experienced players like Angelo Mathews and Malinga in their side, they seemed almost certain to reach the Super Four.
In the inaugural match of the tournament, Sri Lanka faced Bangladesh. It was expected to be a very close match, as Bangladesh also had a very strong side with the likes of Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan in their side.
Sri Lanka started off very well, with Malinga bowling a great opening spell. Bangladesh lost two early wickets and also had their star batsman Tamim Iqbal retired hurt, with a fractured wrist. However, their wicketkeeper-batsman Musfiqur Rahim made a splendid century to take his team to a respectable total of 261 runs.
Sri Lanka began their chase in a positive manner, with Upul Tharanga hitting a few boundaries. However, the Bangladeshi bowlers came back strongly and ran through the Sri Lankan batting lineup. Sri Lanka were bundled out for just 124 runs.
Thus Bangladesh won the match by a huge margin of 137 runs and began their Asia Cup campaign in style.
The Sri Lankan team was shellshocked after this humiliating defeat. They had hardly any time before their next match against Afghanistan, which now became a do or die game for them.
However, Sri Lanka were still the favourites to win and progress to the Super Four. Although Afghanistan had a world class bowler like Rashid Khan in their team, as a whole, their team was not that great.
Nevertheless, the Afghan batsmen played well to put up a competitive total of 249 runs on the board. Rahmat Shah was their highest scorer with 72 runs.
After their disastrous batting performance against Bangladesh, the Sri Lankan batsmen were under pressure while chasing the Afghanistan total.
Most of their top order batsmen got starts, but no one could carry on. As a result, wickets kept falling at regular intervals, and the asking rate continuously increased. When Rashid Khan and Md Nabi came into the attack, the Sri Lankan batsmen found it even harder to get going. They finally got all out for 158 runs and thus lost the match by 91 runs.
Concluding Comments
This loss meant that Sri Lanka were out of the Asia Cup after losing both their matches. And Bangladesh and Afghanistan were through to the Super Four from Group B.
Bangladesh were expected to reach the Super Four. But for Afghanistan cricket, this will surely be a historic moment. They achieved something, which was unthinkable, even a few years back.
On the other hand, for Sri Lankan cricket, this is surely one of the lowest points, in the last few decades.