[Match Threads]: 2018 Tri-Series Matches 3 & 6 | Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka

[TapsC]

The scary thing for me is that I don't know whether we have improved or Sri Lanka are now just as bad as us. From what I saw Afghanistan would roll them over too so they need to avoid them for now.

Also how a team can lose 16 out of their last 17, 26 out of their last 30 games (not accurate but I saw something like that on twitter) and still be 8th on the rankings makes me wonder how they are calculated. I guess they will drop sharply once they lose one of their good years in the calculations. Unless they make herath play for another 5 years their test league experience is going to be painful.

[CrimsonAvenger]

They have shown tremendous resilience recently in tests though (thanks to Herath mainly, but others have done well too). 2 wins and 2 draws away from home in last 5 matches, against Pak and India no less. They were the first to defeat Pak in their "home" ground in all these years and blanked them too for good measure. And then had to deal with the Indian aggression, pollution and crowd ridicule to draw 2 of their 3 matches here as well. Chandimal has done well as the test captain with Karunaratne, Dhananjaya de Silva, Dickwella and Mathews contributing along with Herath. If they turn on whatever is that switch, they can suddenly get decent in ODIs too.

[Kriterion_BD]

They have shown tremendous resilience recently in tests though (thanks to Herath mainly, but others have done well too). 2 wins and 2 draws away from home in last 5 matches, against Pak and India no less. They were the first to defeat Pak in their "home" ground in all these years and blanked them too for good measure. And then had to deal with the Indian aggression, pollution and crowd ridicule to draw 2 of their 3 matches here as well. Chandimal has done well as the test captain with Karunaratne, Dhananjaya de Silva, Dickwella and Mathews contributing along with Herath. If they turn on whatever is that switch, they can suddenly get decent in ODIs too.

They beat the first PAK side to be playing after MisYou. Granted Azhar and Asad are decent batsman, but thats really all the batting they have now. Their bowlers in the longer version apart from Yasir are not threatening. PAK has some very tough times ahead in Test cricket as well. In fact, all things equal, I would rate both PAK and SL's Test teams as weaker than Bangladesh right now, and I don't even think I have to be biased to say that. The BD-SL Test series should test my hypothesis.

[Kriterion_BD]

Also how a team can lose 16 out of their last 17, 26 out of their last 30 games (not accurate but I saw something like that on twitter) and still be 8th on the rankings makes me wonder how they are calculated. I guess they will drop sharply once they lose one of their good years in the calculations. Unless they make herath play for another 5 years their test league experience is going to be painful.

The rankings are essentially a weighted average ie its points divided by matches played. Check how many ODIs Sri Lanka have played. They have played more than any other country. So even 16 losses from 17 games means they are within striking distance of BD and PAK in the rankings. Actually, not really. They are 15 points behind, but because they have played so many games, they would have to probably win 6-7 games in a row against high rankned sides to catch up to PAK and BD.

It goes back to the old adage on ZCF that because ZIM play so few games they can't climb the rankings. Actually, playing few games allows you to vastly improve your rankins quickly with just a few games. BD went from 68 points in November 2014 to 98 points in November 2015...a 30 point increase by beating ZIM 8-0 (two seperate series), beating England once, PAK 3-0, IND 2-1, and SA 2-1. Beating ZIM 8 times only contributed 8 of those 30 points (ie an average of 1 point per win). The other 7 wins got 22 wins or just over 3 points per win. But that is dependent upon how many total matches you've played as well as the difference in rantings betwen the two sides, as I understand it.

[eugene]

Surely Chittagong must be annoyed at being overlooked for matches. Chittagong is a major city after all.

On another note, how popular is football in Bangladesh? I know Dhaka has a couple of big clubs - Mohammedan and Abahani.

Yes, BCB always prefer to host matches in Dhaka. That reduces costing, also due to security reason. Football is not much popular now-a-days. Fans are more concerned about English Premier League, La-Liga etc. rather than domestic football competition.

I found a lot of Bangladeshi Football League matches on youtube. Looks like all the games are played in Dhaka with very few in attendance.

[Kriterion_BD]

Still a very live rubber here! SL and ZIM both can still qualify for the finals. An aproximation of the NRR should SL lose:

Bangladesh batting first for entire 50 overs, SL will need:

320 Bangladesh total,SL will need 251 runs or more to beat ZIM on NRR.

300 Bangladesh total, SL will need 231 runs

250 Bangladesh total, SL will need 182 runs

225 Bangladesh total, SL will need 158 runs

200 Bangladesh total, SL will need 134 runs


Basically, SL will need to be within 65-70 runs of Bangladesh's total in order to pass ZIM on NRR.

[PSR]

Bangladesh win the toss and bat first...best case scenario for us

[Kriterion_BD]

careless batting...great fielding...21-3

[Kriterion_BD]

71-6 now...need 100 more somehow to have a shot at winnibg

[Mr Twig]

82 all out