Off-spinner Dilruwan Perera picked up five wickets as Sri Lanka thumped fragile Bangladesh by an innings and 248 runs in the first Test in Dhaka yesterday.
Bangladesh, trailing by a huge 498-run margin on first innings, were bowled out for 250 in their second knock after lunch on the fourth day at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium.
Perera, a 31-year-old playing in his second Test, finished with five for 109, while seamer Suranga Lakmal took three as the hosts were dismissed in 51.5 overs with a day to spare.
Photo: Reuters
Bangladesh, who resumed the day at 35-1, failed to cope with Sri Lanka’s pace and spin assault, and lost their last nine wickets for 215 runs, despite an even-paced pitch.
The hosts were reduced to 197-9 before the last-wicket pair of Rubel Hossain and Al Amin Hossain boosted the total with lusty hitting during an entertaining partnership of 53 runs off 38 balls.
Rubel made 17, while Al Amin hit an unbeaten quickfire 32 off 18 balls that contained four sixes and one four.
Bangladesh, who made 232 in their first innings, conceded their highest Test total of 730-6 declared. Three Sri Lanka players hit centuries including Mahela Jayawardene, who scored an unbeaten double-ton.
Jayawardene, who was named man of the match, said he was happy to contribute to what was a “great game” by the team.
“It has been some time since I got a big one,” the 36-year-old former captain said. “I thought it was a great game by the team as everyone put their hands up and performed. I think the wicket played really well and even today there was a little bit of pace for our quicks, and for the spinners it was turning, but the important thing was the bounce which really helped us.”
“Test cricket is all about handling situations, that is where our guys did well. We applied ourselves and made sure we did not lose wickets up front,” he said.
Sri Lanka have now won 14 of their 15 Tests against Bangladesh, eight of them by an innings margin, and drawn the other.
On their previous tour in 2008-2009, Sri Lanka had won the first Test by 107 runs and the second by 465 runs.
Bangladesh, who languish at the bottom of the Test rankings at No. 10 — lower than unfancied Zimbabwe — have lost 68 of their 82 Tests since gaining full status in 2000.
They have won four Tests, two each against Zimbabwe and the West Indies.
Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim rued the lack of runs in the first innings that set his team back.
“It was a good wicket to bat on, but we did not play well from day one and that put us on the back foot,” the skipper said. “It is very difficult to come back from there. The boys just did not show the fight in the middle.”
Opener Shamsur Rahim was dismissed off the second ball of the day, fending at a vicious short ball from Shaminda Eranga and edging a catch to wicketkeeper Dinesh Chandimal.
Mominul Haque smashed eight boundaries in a fluent 50 off 57 balls, but the assault did not last long as he fell leg before wicket to Perera.
The second Test starts in the port city of Chittagong on Tuesday next week.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For