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Wednesday, 21 March 2012 00:55 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
In a historic achievement, Bangladesh entered the Asia Cup final for the first time by beating Sri Lanka by five wickets at the Shere Bangla stadium on Tuesday.
The result knocks India out of the tournament, who finished level on points with the host nation, but lost out because of their defeat against Bangladesh earlier in the competition.
Chasing a target of 212 for victory in 40 overs in a rain-affected game, Bangladesh won in the 38th over, thanks to half-centuries by Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan.
Earlier, three quick wickets from Nazmul Hossain, who came in the team for the injured Shafiul Islam, had the visitors reeling at 32 for 3 inside the first 10 overs before middle-order duo of Chamara Kapugedera (62 from 92 balls) and Lahiru Thirimanne (48 from 73 balls) put their side back on track.
Winning the toss and opting to bowl first, Nazmul, who played his last ODI back in October last year, rocked the Lankan top-order by removing Mahela Jayawardene (5), Tillakaratne Dilshan (19) and Kumar Sangakkara (6) early on.
Thirimanne and Kapugedera then held fort for Sri Lanka and without taking too much risk rotated the strike well in the middle overs. The pair added 88 for the fourth wicket, after which Kapugedera, along with Upul Tharanga (48), orchestrated a further 49 for the fifth wicket.
Thirimanne missed out on a half-century by two runs when Abdur Razzaq picked up the in-form batsman who tried to charge out to a delivery that was going down the leg side. The ball richocheted off Rahim’s pads and hit the stumps with the batsman out of his crease.
Meanwhile, Kapugedera completed his half-century but soon he fell to Razzaq as well. Trying to hit a cover drive, Kapugedera could only mange to find Shakib Al Hasan who held on to a low catch. Kapugedera made 62 that included four boundaries.
Allrounders Farveez Maharoof and Nuwan Kulasekara failed to make a positive impact with the bat as Shakib struck at regular intervals during the batting Powerplay. Sri Lanka were again in dire straits with the scorecard reading 183 for 7.
But Tharanga carried on with his usual business of hitting the ball all over the park and in the process brought up Sri Lanka’s 200. Tharanga also missed out on a fifty by two runs when he edged one off Shahadat Hossain, trying to steer it down to third-man, to wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim.
The tail-end duo of Sachithra Senanayake and Lasith Malinga scored 19 and 10 respectively, but Sri Lanka only managed 232 in 49.5 overs. Then the youngsters Nasir Hossain (36) and Mahmudullah (33) stepped up and applied themselves under tremendous pressure to steer Bangladesh to another historic win thus making way for their first ever final appearance in Asia Cup.
