Sri Lanka secure tenth consecutive win on home soil
Sri Lanka completed formalities shortly before the scheduled luncheoninterval on the fourth day, bowling out Bangladesh for 184 to secure theirtenth consecutive victory on home soil; and their first win without theservices of Muttiah Muralitharan
Charlie Austin30-Jul-2002Sri Lanka completed formalities shortly before the scheduled luncheoninterval on the fourth day, bowling out Bangladesh for 184 to secure theirtenth consecutive victory on home soil; and their first win without theservices of Muttiah Muralitharan since the off-spinner started his career in1992.The tourists, led by 17-year-old Mohammad Ashraful, who confirmed hispotential after a lean period since becoming the youngest ever Testcenturion last September, kept the Sri Lankans at bay for the first hourbefore a collapse that saw six wickets fall for 17 runs.The right-handed Ashraful scored 75 from 120 balls, hitting 12 boundaries,adding 68 runs for the fifth wicket with Alok Kapali (23), whose all-roundperformance on his debut Test drew praise afterwards from coach MohsinKamal.But mid-way through the morning off-spinner Thilan Samaraweera dismissedboth players within the space of eight minutes: Kapali was brilliantlycaught by Jehan Mubarak diving to his right at short leg off bat-pad, whilstAshraful was unfortunate to have also adjudged to have been caught at shortleg off pad only – the luck, not for the first time in this game, not goingBangladesh’s way.Left-armer Sujeewa de Silva, replacing Chamila Gamage, who beat the batrepeatedly during his brisk opening five burst, quickly nipped out TapashBashar (3), courtesy of a stunning airborne catch by Upul Chandana in thegully, and then Fahim Muntasir (1) with a curling yorker.Samaraweera wrapped up proceedings, as the close in fielders snapped up twomore catches: Manjural Islam (0) and Talha Jubair (0) both completing apair.Sri Lanka’s celebrations were muted at the end, the captain and coachadmitting that the victory, though a welcome after a series of defeats, wasof little relevance; the most important aspect of the series being theemergence of fast bowler Chamila Gamage and the batting of Michael Vandort,the Man of the Match here after scores of 61 and 140.”The results from England are still fresh in the mind and it was importantto comeback against Bangladesh as strongly as possible,” said coach DavWhatmore. “A lot of people will say that this is what we are expected to doagainst Bangladesh, and we are painfully aware of that, but you have to pickup the pieces somewhere.”Sanath Jayasuriya, back smiling again, said: “We may have won this seriesbut you can’t say that everything is going our way yet. In these conditionswe know we can do it, but we need to prove ourselves outside Sri Lanka andthere is a lot of hard work to be done in all departments of our game.”He admitted that defeat in England had affected morale: “The truth is thatEngland badly affected our confidence – we didn’t perform up to our ownstandards and it was very disappointing for the whole team. Slowly we haveto get back our old confidence.”The captain, originally uncomfortable with the selector’s experimentation inthis series, was especially delighted by Gamage’s bowling: “Chamila (Gamage)has shown his potential in this match – I think he can compete on theinternational stage.””I’m also impressed with the performance of Michael Vandort,” he added. “Hegrabbed his opportunity in this game and showed that he can score runs inthe top order.”For Bangladesh it was a familiar tale, coach Mohsin Kamal admitting that itwas hard to keep the players positive as the defeats stack up. This wastheir 12th loss in 13 Tests and the 11th consecutive innings in which theyhave failed to pass 200.”It is hard to lose continuously as half of cricket is played in thedressing room,” said Kamal, after his first series in charge, “but the guysjust have to be positive when they are there preparing themselves.”But he remained upbeat about the future: “We got some youngsters in the sidefor this match and they showed that they have a lot of talent – they justneed more experience in Test and four-day cricket.”He singled out the bowlers for special praise: “The bowlers did well, especially yesterday when they were under pressure – they bowled beautifully inthe morning, restricting the Sri Lankan batsmen.”I was also really pleased with the performance of Ashraful. He was under alot of pressure to score runs after not getting runs in the side matches andnot playing in the first Test. He has shown his ability.”Bangladesh can, at least, seek some comfort in the fact that they are notalone in finding it difficult to adjust to the demands of Test cricket: SriLanka had to wait 14 matches before their first victory, Zimbabwe took 11games, India 25 and New Zealand a staggering 45 – Bangladesh will surely notwait that long.