Nuan Thusara played a great spell with the new ball. Bangladesh crashed out of the match after losing three wickets in the fourth and first over of the innings. He picked up Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Tawheed Hriday and Mahmudullah to take a hat-trick as the fifth bowler from Lanka. Later, this pacer broke the backbone of Bangladesh’s batting by taking two more wickets. At the end of the match, the skipper calmed down and Bangladesh lost because of his bowling.
Bangladesh lost 4 wickets out of 2 runs, three of them by Thusara. It is very difficult to return to the match in such conditions. The Rishad-Taskin storm only narrowed the gap in the end. Bangladesh was on the verge of winning the T20 series for the first time against Sri Lanka. But could not, lost by 28 runs. After this loss, Shanto came to the press conference and said that they were knocked out of the match in the first over of Thusara.
Did you get knocked out of the match in one over? In response to such a question, Shanto said, ‘Yes, I think so too. Very good over. I think credit should be given to the bowler. Yes, in that one over we fell behind a lot.’
Thusara got a little swing in the first over. The batsmen did not have much trouble against him despite taking two more wickets in the next three overs. Mainly because of the swing of the new ball, the Bangladesh team had to suffer. Shanta thinks, ‘If we could have played a bit better in that over (first), if we had played the new ball better in the beginning, maybe things could have been different.’
Mathisha Pathirana was left out of the playing XI in the last match due to injury. Instead, Thusara, who bowls much like Malinga, got a chance to take the field today. Thusara grew up under his tutelage in the town of Malinga. Bowling in a different action like Malinga. Shanta thinks that there is some problem because of his action. But seeing his video footage, Bangladesh prepared well, ‘We were clear in our preparation. I was aware of his bowling videos. Knew he had the potential to play.’
Bangladesh captain Shanto also said, ‘His (Thusara) action is a little different. Was getting a little swing, with his action. And the ball was not bouncing as much because of the side arm action. The ball stays a little lower. He had swings with him. We don’t play that kind of ball very often. I handled Pathirana well in the previous two matches. I think the ball was swinging early on. At the international level we need to accept such challenges and plan how we can do better.’
Despite losing the three-match T20 series, Bangladesh is taking many positive things from here. Shanto said, ‘Overall I think there were a lot of positives in the series. How we came back even after losing wickets. First match and this match. The way the bowlers came back in today’s (Saturday) match, there are many positives, which will come in handy in the future.’
#Bangladesh #lost #Thusara #Shant
