Tigers slumped

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After fighting boldly on the previous day, Bangladesh lost their last five wickets in less than half an hour on the fourth morning to suffer their biggest defeat against Sri Lanka — by an innings and 234 runs — in the first Test of the three-match series at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) ground yesterday.

Left-arm pacer Lasith Malinga and man-of-the-match Muttiah Muralidaran took only 4.4 overs to wrap up Bangladesh’s second innings, which collapsed at 254.

Sri Lanka continued their domination over the Tigers by winning all eight Tests by big margins including five innings victories.

Having won nine out of their 11 previous Tests at the SSC since 2001, Sri Lanka’s twelfth victory at this venue must have been one of the easier ones as first, Bangladesh meekly surrendered in the first innings at only 89 and then revisiting their batting ghost on the fourth day.

Bangladesh resumed the day on 233-5 with a hope to delay the inevitable and after all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan cracked a boundary off the very first ball of the day, it seemed almost possible.

But experienced wicketkeeper-batsman Khaled Mashud opened the floodgates in only the tenth ball of the day. Malinga’s yorker swung into the big gap between his bat and pad to knock the middle stump as he was late in bringing the bat down. Mashud scored only one.

Then champion off-spinner Muralidaran came into action with a ‘doosra’ to trap Mashrafe Bin Mortaza leg before. Mashrafe struck two boundaries in his short innings of nine runs.

Young left-handed batsman Shakib then demonstrated how dangerous and wrong it is to flash at the ball away from body as Malinda Warnapura caught him at short-cover off Malinga, who also took the wicket of Mohammad Rafique to finish with figures of 4-80.

Muralidaran finished the job by having tail-ender Shahadat Hossain stumped by Prasanna Jayawardene as Bangladesh lost their final seven wickets for a meagre 27 runs.

Muralidaran, who is now 26 short of Australian legend Shane Warne’s Test record of 708 wickets, returned with brilliant match figures of 9 for 102. He captured four wickets in the second innings.

The second Test starts at the P Saravanamuttu Stadium here on July 3.

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