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Dhaka: Tharanga and Jayawardene slammed century apiece to guide Sri Lanka to a comprehensive 9-wicket victory over Bangladesh and book a place in the final.
Sri Lanka complete a convincing, comprehensive and a clinical win in the 4th game, crushing the home side Bangladesh by 9 wickets to make it three out of three wins in the Tri-nation series.
It was a perfect day in the field for Sri Lanka. Just about everything went their way today, right from the toss. They restricted the home side to an average total courtesy some excellent bowling effort. While to complete their run chase of 250, they only needed their top three batsmen to get there in 42.5 overs.
Opener Tharanga (118*) and his make-shift partner Jayawardena (108) shared a record-breaking opening stand of 215 runs to give their side a commanding position. The later got out in the 38th over but Sangakkara (17*) saw his side through along with the unbeaten opener.
Upul Tharanga was hence awarded the Man of the Match. With this win, Sri Lanka have ensured a place in the finals. It will be pretty much difficult for the home side to reach there now, as first they will have to expect India to lose on Sunday and then beat them by a healthy margin in the next coming game.
Earlier, Bangladesh let themselves down with some irresponsible batting and settled for a below-par 249 for nine in their must-win match against Sri Lanka in the cricket tri-series here on Friday.
Put in to bat and under pressure to post a big total to cancel out the dew factor, the Bangladesh batsmen stuttered with wickets failing at regular intervals and their cause was not helped either by some irresponsible batting in front of their 10,000-odd supporters at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium here.
None of their top-order batsmen scored big and except for the fourth wicket stand of 78 runs from 114 balls between captain Shakib Al Hasan (47) and Raqibul Hasan (43) there was no worthwhile partnership after openers Tamim Iqbal (21) and Imrul Kayes (42) had raised 44 for the first wicket.
Shakib, who came in when his side was struggling at 88 for three, top-scored with a 75-ball knock which included just one four and he was out while trying to hoist a short ball from well outside the off-stump.
After Shakib's departure in the 38th over at 165 for four, Bangladesh batsmen fell in a heap, with Mushfiqur Rahim (32), Naeem Islam (5), Abdur Razzak (1) and Rubel Hossain (0) out in the space of four overs with the addition of just 32 runs.
Brief scores
Bangladesh: 249 for 9 (Shakib Al Hasan 47, Perera 2-32)
Sri Lanka: 252 for 1 (Tharanga 118*, Jayawardene 108)
Result: Sri Lanka won by 9-wickets
MOM: WU Tharanga (Sri Lanka)
