Bangladesh opt to bat first against Sri Lanka

Bangladesh won the toss and chose to bat first against Sri Lanka in their first match of the Asia Cup at Pallekele Cricket Stadium in Kandy on Thursday.

The match will start at 3:30pm. 

The Tigers reached the final of the Asia Cup three times but never could lift the trophy. However they want to break that jinx in this edition with captain Shakib Al Hasan focusing on to winning start to get a momentum for the whole tournament.

Since 2015, when Bangladesh established them as the giant of the ODI format, they had the upper-hand over the Lankans.

Moreover Sri Lanka was hit by injury and would miss the service of inform leg-spin allrounder Wanindu Hasaranga, who was the highest run-getter and wicket-taker in the recently concluded Lankan Premier League (LPL). Apart from Hasanranga, they will also miss some of the key players, due to injury, which is why, they are not dubbed as favourite despite playing at home.

Overall in Asia Cup, the two teams met 15 times with Sri Lanka winning 12 of them. But in the last five Asia Cup matches, Bangladesh won three, giving a testament how fast they closed the gap against Sri Lanka, who once was invincible against them.

In total, the two teams met 51 times in ODI format of cricket with Sri Lankan emerging as winner for 40 times while Bangladesh won 9 matches. The rest of the two matches were washed out.

Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan (Captain), Najmul Hossain Shanto, Towhid Hridoy, Mushfiqur Rahim, Afif Hossain, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, Mustafizur Rahman, Shoriful Islam, Nasum Ahmed, Mahedi Hasan, Naim Sheikh, Shamim Hossain Patwari, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Anamul Haque Bijoy

Sri Lanka: Dasun Shanaka (capt), Pathum Nissanka, Dimuth Karunaratne, Kusal Mendis (wk), Kusal Perera, Dhananjaya de Silva, Charith Asalanka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Dunith Wellalage, Maheesh Theekshana, Matheesha Pathirana, Kasun Rajitha, Dushan Hemantha, Binura Fernando, Pramod Madushan