Tamim out to spoil Malinga’s farewell party
Collected
|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh interim captain Tamim Iqbal showed his utmost respect towards Lasith Malinga but vowed to gatecrash his party by winning the first match on Friday at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.
Malinga will walk into the sunset after that match and therefore Sri Lanka would like to give him a fitting farewell.
Tamim gave his best wishes to this veteran Sri Lankan from him and his team but he doesn’t want to give any leeweay to Malinga just because he is retiring.
"Tomorrow is a special match for him. And one thing for sure when we will play against him we won't keep in mind that it's his last match and we will try to make it as tough for him as possible," Tamim said in the pre-match press conference.
"It’s really amazing the things he achieved for Sri Lanka cricket and for the whole world. Best wishes to him from me and my teammates.I want to wish him good luck with that. But not much for tomorrow's match," Tamim added.
Tamim hailed Malinga as one of the greatest ambassadors of cricket. And said, Malinga is someone whom everybody wanted to follow. Tamim believes Malinga's impact in World Cricket is undeniable.
"He is one of the greatest ambassadors of cricket. I think he is a cricketer who is idolized by a lot of young cricketers. He is that type of cricketer. Not only in Sri Lanka in the whole World," He said.
"I remember when he first came to play especially against Bangladesh. People wanted to bowl like him. Even when we came to play in Sri Lanka, we looked for bowlers in the nets who bowl like him. He had this type of impact in the cricketing world," he concluded.
Malinga took 335 wickets in 225 matches for Sri Lanka. And he is the third-highest wicket-taker for the Lankans. At the age of 35, Malinga was the highest wicket-taker for Sri Lanka in the World cup, taking 13 wickets in seven matches.
