Nidahas Trophy 2018: Match 3, Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh – Match Predictions

Bangladesh will be under pressure to ensure they don’t go down twice in a row, otherwise, the window for return will shrink.

Published - 09 Mar 2018, 22:02 IST | Updated - 09 Mar 2018, 22:02 IST

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Both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh faced India in their opening encounters in the Nidahas Trophy and while Sri Lanka managed to pull off an upset against the mighty Men in Blue, the result of the India-Bangladesh encounter was on the expected lines. As things stand at the moment, Bangladesh are at the bottom of the table as their points tally is empty, while Sri Lanka is at no. 2 with two points that they got as a result of their victory over India.

It’s only a brief tournament and a couple of losses might make it difficult for a team to qualify for the final. So Bangladesh will be under a bit of pressure to ensure they don’t go down twice in a row, otherwise, the window for return will shrink. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, will look to back up their performance against India with another good one and get to the top of the standings.

Probable nature of the pitch

The pitch at the R Premadasa Stadium has been flat in the past couple of games and it should be the same again tomorrow. There hasn’t been any movement off the deck either for the pace bowlers or the spinners and to put the icing on the cake, the carry has been pretty nice too. So there is absolutely no challenge for the batsman from pitch’s perspective and anyone who plays smart cricket and picks his spots while playing his spots has a good chance of scoring big.

Playing Combination

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka will go with an unchanged XI. It’s not too long back that they were terribly struggling in white ball cricket, but all of a sudden things seem to have fallen in place for them as they have found the right balance in their XI with both bat and ball. While Kusal Mendis has been very comfortable opening the batting, Kusal Perera has been explosive at no. 3. There is a bit of class and experience in the form of Dinesh Chandimal and Upul Tharanga at 4 and 5, followed by the brute power of Dashun Shanaka and Thisara Perera at 6 and 7 respectively.

Also bowling wise, Jeevan Mendis has proven more than handful as the 4th bowler and has complemented the specialist spinner Akila Dhananjaya brilliantly, while Dushmantha Chameera and Nuwan Pradeep are doing a tremendous job with their pace stuff.

Probable XI: Danushka Gunathilaka, Kusal Mendis, Kusal Perera (wk), Upul Tharanga, Dinesh Chandimal (C), Thisara Perera, Dasun Shanaka, Jeevan Mendis, Nuwan Pradeep, Dushmantha Chameera, Akila Dananjaya

Bangladesh

Bangladesh were a batsman short against India and they clearly looked a light batting unit. They ended up posting a total which was way below par on a flat deck and learning from that, hey might like to play an extra batsman tomorrow. If that’s the case, Imrul Kayes will walk into the XI ahead of Mehidy Hasan.

In that scenario, Bangladesh will be dependent on the captain Mahmudullah and Sabbir Rahman to fulfil the 5th bowlers’ quota. While Mahmudullah is a pretty handy bowler, Sabbir is a part-time leggie who doesn’t quite have the control. However, that’s the risk the Tigers will have to take if they want to strengthen their batting with another specialist batsman.

Probable XI: Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Mahmudullah (C), Sabbir Rahman, Liton Das, Mustafizur Rahman, Nazmul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Rubel Hossain