The Sri Lanka U19s put in a brilliant team effort to win their Youth Asia Cup opener comfortably against the home side Bangladesh at the Chittagong Stadium.
Skipper Nipun Dananjaya won the toss and decided to field first on a dry Chittagong wicket.
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The home team failed to get a good start, as their opener Saajid Hossain was run-out in the second over of the match and was followed into the pavilion by Prantik Nawroz, who was clean bowled by the left-arm seamer Kalana Perera. Bangladesh Skipper Towhid Hridoy and Tanzid Hasan built a 45-run partnership for the 3rd wicket before the debutant Kalhara Senarathne picked up the latter. After that Bangladesh kept on losing wickets at regular intervals and eventually were all out for 141 runs.
Thanks to the spin trio, Dunith Wellalage, Shashika Dulshan and Senarathne, who shared 6 wickets, Sri Lanka managed to restrict the hosts to a seemingly comfortable target. Dulshan, in particular, bowled his full quota of overs excellently and gave away only 11 runs, picking up 2 wickets. Skipper Hridoy scored 35 runs for the home side with none of the others making any significant contribution.
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Chasing a modest total, Sri Lanka fell into some trouble as they lost 2 wickets in their first over, including the runout of skipper Dananjaya. At one stage they were struggling on 3 for 28, with the match threatening to slip away from them. But experienced campaigners Nuwanindu Fernando and Pasindu Sooriyabandara constructed 90 runs for the 4th wicket and took the side home with 6 wickets and more than 10 overs in hand.
Nuwanindu was named Player of the Match for his well composed 64 runs which included 7 fours and 1 six while Sooriyabandara scored 36 runs in 94 balls to anchor the innings.
Sri Lanka’s next assignment will be against Hong Kong tomorrow (30th September).
