Sri Lankan opener Kusal Perera’s swashbuckling 53-ball 77 took Sri Lanka to a comfortable 6-wicket win over Bangladesh in the first Twenty20 International in Colombo on Tuesday. Sri Lanka chased down Bangladesh’s 155/6 with seven balls and six wickets to spare.
The big news from the match was Mashrafe Mortaza’s announcement at the toss that he would be retiring from T20Is after the series.
“This is going to be my last T20 series for Bangladesh,” Mortaza said at the toss. “I would like to thank BCB, my family and friends, team-mates and coaching staff.
After winning the toss and choosing to bat, Bangladesh lost their big-hitting opener Tamim Iqbal to Lasith Malinga off the second ball of the match. Soumya Sarkar and Sabbir Rahman put together a 57-run partnership but Bangladesh lost a flurry of wickets and were 82/5 after 11.1 overs.
Mosaddek Hossain and Mahmudullah, however, took Bangladesh to a score above 150 as they finished on 155/6.
Sri Lanka’s chase got off to a pacy start as Upul Tharanga and Perera got 65 off the first 41 balls. Bangladesh did manage to get Tharanga out and get two more wickets but Seekugge Prasanna smashed 22 off 12 balls at the death to take the chase Sri Lanka’s way and give them a 1-0 lead. The next match is on Thursday at the same venue.
Brief scores:
Bangladesh 155/6 in 20 overs (Mosaddek Hossain 34 not out, Mahmudullah 31; Lasith Malinga 2/38, Seekkuge Prasanna 1/19) lost to Sri Lanka 158/4 in 18.5 overs (Kusal Perera 77, Upul Tharanga 24; Mashrafe Mortaza 2/32, Taskin Ahmed 1/33) by eight wickets