Sri Lanka will have to wait until Friday afternoon whether its 143-member contingent for the 16th Asian Games would return home empty handed without a single medal or not. Sri Lanka lost its semi final match to Bangladesh by five wickets today and will now have to wait until today’s third place play-off match against Pakistan to know whether they would take home at least a solitary bronze medal.
It was a giant killing performances in today’s semi finals as the two teams which were fancied to figure in Friday’s final – Sri Lanka and Pakistan, were both beaten by minnows Bangladesh and Afghanistan respectively.
Returning to the ‘semis’ with a narrow two-wicket win over Nepal with seven balls to spare on the previous day in the quarter finals, Sri Lanka never looked comfortable against Bangladesh. The only thing that went right for Sri Lanka was skipper Jehan Mebarak’s right call when tossing.
Sri Lanka will now meet Pakistan in Friday’s third place play-off to decide the bronze medallist. Pakistan too suffered a shock defeat at the hand of Afghanistan in the other semi final. Afghanistan proved that their shock win over Hong Kong in the quarter finals was not a fluke, when they knocked out the hot favourtites Pakistan by 22 runs in the first semi final.
Chief scores of semi-finals:
First semi final – Afghanistan beat Pakistan by 22 runs Afghanistan: 125 for 8 in 20 overs (Shabir Ahmad Noori 35, Karim Khan Sadeq 19, Lal Kumar 2 for 24, Muhammed Irshad 2 for 25, Reza Hassan 2 for 19).
Pakistan: 103 for 7 in 20 overs (Sharjeel Khan 23, Khalid Latif 26, lal Kumar 18 n,o, Hamid Hasan 2 for 16, Karim Khan Sadeq 2 for 17). Second semi final – Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka by five wickets Sri Lanka: 101 all out in 20 overs (Nuwan Zoysa 11, Jeevantha Kulatunga 25, Kusal Perera 14, Chinthaka Jayasinghe 28, Kazi Shahadat Hossain 3 for 29, Mohammed Sohrawordi 4 for 6).
Bangladesh: 102 for 5 in 15.2 overs (Mohammed Nazim Uddin 16, Naeem Islam 25, Mohammed Ashraful 18, Foysalhossain Decans 33, Nuwan Zoysa 2 for 15, Malinga Bandara 1 for 23, T.M. Sampath 1 for 8).