Bangladesh returns home after a frustrating SL tour
Photo: Collected
|| CF Correspondent ||
After tasting a humiliating whitewash at the hands of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh returned home on Thursday.
The team arrived at the Shahjalal International Airport today at around 2 pm though they were initially supposed to arrive earlier at 11:30am (Bangladesh Time).
Due to a delay in flight for a technical problem, the Tigers left Colombo at 9:45 am (Sri Lanka Time).
Coming here in Sri Lanka with an aim to win their first bilateral series, the Tiger put up a disappointing performance in all departments.
Although they were without the service of some of their key players like Shakib Al Hasan, Liton Das, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza and Mohammad Saifuddin, the side that was sent to Sri Lanka was believed to be capable of beating Sri Lanka.
Shakib and Liton were granted leave for their personal affairs while Mashrafe and Saifuddin were ruled out from the side at the eleventh hour after sustaining injury.
Bangladesh though had a disappointing World Cup outing, finishing eighth at the point table, they were still favourites against Sri Lanka, being a higher ranked team and also considering their superior performance against the Lankans in the recent time.
The Lankans finished World Cup higher in position in Bangladesh but that didn’t convince anyone that they could be a match for Tigers in the series.
Tamim Iqbal, who captained the side in the series was confident that they could beat Sri Lanka. All-rounder Mosaddek Hossain, Soumya Sarkar even confidently dubbed themselves favorites before the series had started.
However Lankans showed how strong they are at their home den. But Bangladesh’s listless batting, wayward bowling and shoddy fielding contributed in their humiliating defeat also.
Bangladesh lost the first match by 91 runs and second one by seven wickets before tasting their fifth whitewash at the hands of Lankans by losing the last match by 122 runs. It was overall their 27th whitewash in their cricket history.
By winning this series, the Sri Lanka also proved a point that they could even beat Bangladesh in the World Cup if the match was not washed out.
However it is not sure what the result will be if Shakib Al Hasan who had a tremendous World Cup would be with the team. Shakib had scored 606 runs and taken 11 wickets in the cricket’s biggest extravaganza to create some unique records.
But Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne was gracious enough to admit that Shakib’s absence gave them an advantage. The Tigers now are looking to regroup them from the disappointing series.
