SL determined to wrap up series

Second Twenty20 Bangladesh targets perfect Mortaza farewell

Mashrafe Mortaza has revealed that he never enjoyed Twenty20 cricket because the duration was so short that it never allowed him to get into the groove.

That is a big admission from the Bangladesh captain, who was given the responsibility to shape the team and did a wonderful job at that.

He will be retiring from the format after the second T20 International against Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo today (6). It has been a memorable tour for Bangladesh. It drew the Test and One-day International series, and needs to win the final game to share the honours in the T20I series too.

Not only will it be a wonderful farewell gift to a great servant of Bangladesh cricket, it will also be a significant moment in the history of the sport in the country.

It will be the first time since it became a Test nation in 2000 that Bangladesh will end a full tour to a higher-ranked nation on even ground.

The impact of that can only be felt in years to come, and go a long way in boosting coach Chandika Hathurusinghe’s aspirations of making Bangladesh a world leader in cricket by 2019.

Teams (from): SRI LANKA: Upul Tharanga (Captain), Dilshan Munaweera, Danushka Gunathilaka, Lasith Malinga, Isuru Udana, Nuwan Kulasekara, Dasun Shanaka, Vikum Sanjaya, Milinda Siriwardana, Asela Gunaratne, Seekkuge Prasanna, Chamara Kapugedara, Thisara Perera, Lakshan Sandakan, Shehan Jayasuriya and Kusal Perera (wk).

BANGLADESH: Mashrafe Mortaza (Captain), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Shakib al Hasan, Sabbir Rahman, M. Mahmudullah, Mosaddek Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Subashis Roy, Sunzamul Islam, Nurul Hasan, Mehedi Hasan and Mohammad Saifuddin. (ICC)