Bangladesh started the Super Four phase of the Asia Cup with a big loss of 7 wickets against Pakistan. A win was therefore inevitable in the second match against Sri Lanka to keep the final chances alive. However, the fight against the hosts at home did not go well. Once again the Tigers had to lose due to batting failure. After two consecutive defeats in the Super Four, Bangladesh's chances have not ended on paper. However, dreaming of the final from here may be a bit excessive!
Hosts Sri Lanka defeated Bangladesh by 21 runs at Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. Through this, Dasun Shanaka's team has won 13 ODIs in a row. The Sri Lankans are now second only to Australia in terms of consecutive ODI wins.
Bangladesh won the toss and decided to bowl at Premadasa. The bowlers did their job well restricting the Lankans to 257 runs. But even in this target the batters played very poorly . In this year's Asia Cup, the batsmen's performance in both the matches against Sri Lanka in the group stage and Pakistan in the Super Four gave rise to disappointment. At times, the batsmen gave their best in the match against Afghanistan, and the results were in their favor.
Bangladesh did not get off to a bad start after restricting Sri Lanka to 257 runs. Bangladesh scored 47 runs without losing any wicket in the first 10 overs. The scenario changed in the next ten overs. Bangladesh lost four top-order batsmen to score 37 runs this time.
Mushfiqur Rahim made a partnership of 72 runs with Tawhid Hriday for the fifth wicket. However, Bangladesh was in danger again when Mushfiqur gave away his wicket while playing frantically for a personal 29 runs.
Hridoy continued to fight, picking up his fourth career fifty. However, due to the lack of a partner, his resistance also broke down. Hriday's innings stopped at 82 runs off 97 balls with 7 fours and 1 six. Nasum Ahmed and Hasan Mahmud's cameo of 20 runs off 12 balls in the last wicket brought some light of victory, but in the end it only narrowed the margin of defeat.
Shakib Al Hasan's team will play their last Super Four match against India on September 15 at the same ground.