Winning the toss on a pitch which seemed to be a better batting track than previous matches in the tournament, Bangladesh chose to bat first with high hopes of landing a big score. But Sri Lanka struck thrice in quick succession once at the beginning and again at the death to restrict Bangladesh to 147-6 in their 20 overs. It did not seem to be enough against a good looking Sri Lankan batting line-up. However, all the Bangladeshi bowlers bowled a consistent line and length to restrict Sri Lanka to 124-8 in their 20 overs and win the match by 23 runs. Here we have listed down the five main talking points of the match-

#1) Sri-Lankan Bowlers struck early: Sri Lankan bowlers Mathews and Kulasekara hit the right lengths first up as Bangladesh were reduced to 2-2 within the first two overs. To add to these early jitters Mathews also effected a run-out in the 5th over to dismiss Mushfiqur Rahim, thus reducing Bangladesh to 26-3.

#2) Sabbir Rahman’s Innings: Sabbir Rahman played a classy innings off 80 off 54 balls to dig Bangladesh out of grave after they lost early wickets. He stiched a crucial partnership of 82 runs for the 4th wicket with Shakib-Al-Hasan and steadied their ship. It is an astonishing fact that he scored 80 runs out of the total 108 runs that Bangladesh had scored when he was dismissed. He was later adjudged as the Man of the Match as well.

#3) Shakib-Al-Hasan played second fiddle to Sabbir Rahman: Shakib played a clever innings of 32(34) when Sabbir was going with all guns blazing at the other hand. Shakib held the wicket at one end and ensured that Bangladesh did not face further hiccups after early jitters.

#4) Dushmanta Chameera’s spell: Chameera bowled the 16th,18th and the 20th over of the Bangladeshi innings and struck each time in his last three overs. He also dismissed Sabbir Rahman who was looking dangerous at that time. He ended the match with figures of 3/30 in 4 overs. He was the reason that Bangladesh couldn’t score 160+ runs on this pitch.

#5) Superb Bowling and Fielding efforts from Bangladesh: Soumya Sarkar provided Bangladesh the impetus to give their 100% in the field after taking a stunning catch at mid-off to dismiss Dilshan. Bangladeshi bowlers hunted in packs and dried the runs up after Chandimal’s dismissal in the 11th over. Shakib-Al-Hasan was excellent in his spell of 4 overs with figures of 2-21. Mustafizur also bowled well picking up a wicket for 19 runs. Al-Amin was the most impressive with figures of 3-34 in 4 overs. Bangladesh were victorious by 23 runs.