Herath troubles Bangladesh

CRICKET: Left arm spinner Rangana Herath snapped up three late wickets to spoil Bangladesh’s preparations for the forthcoming test series, on the opening day of the three day warm up match against the Sri Lanka ‘A’ team which began at the Colts Cricket Club ground in Havelock Park yesterday.

Bangladesh after a promising start collapsed to 183 for 5 in their first innings after skipper Mohammad Ashraful won the toss and elected to bat first. Test cap Rangana Herath made a fine impact as he sent down a marathon spell of twenty overs to finish with the excellent figures of three wickets for 51 runs.

Herath bowled in short spells and his best period was certainly the final session where he really troubled the visitors with some accurate bowling. He also had the credit of capturing the prize wicket of captain Mohammad Asharaful who hit a pain staking 37 runs in two hours of batting inclusive of one six and four boundaries.

However Asharaful’s contribution was quite significant as he put on a useful 75 run stand for the fourth wicket along with former captain Habibul Bashar. This pair pulled the side out of trouble with some intelligent batting after they had lost there wickets for just 73 runs.

Bashar went on to remain unbeaten on 60 having faced 146 deliveries and included five boundaries. The tourists started at a slow pace as they collected only 69 runs from the opening session and they struggled to reached 125 for three wickets at the tea interval.

Their hopes of accelerating the scoring rate during the final session was shattered by Rangana Herath who grabbed the opportunity to make a significant impact during the final session. His figures of three wickets for 51 runs however does not give a clear picture of his effort as he troubled all the batsmen.

BANGLADESH 1ST INNINGS

Javed Omar run out 			34 
Shahriar Nafees c Mubarak b Prasad 	16 
Rajin Saleh lbw b Herath 		21 
Habibul Bashar not out 		60 
M. Ashraful cJayawardene bHerath 	37 
Shakib Al Hasan c Udawatte b Herath 	0 
Khaled Mashud not out 		7 

Extras (b 5, lb 2, nb 1) 		8 

TOTAL (5 wickets; 79 overs) 		183 

TO BAT: Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammad Sharif, Abdur Razzak, Shahadat Hossain, Syed Rasel. 
FALL OF WICKETS: 1-25, 2-70, 3-73, 4-148, 5-148. 
BOWLING: A. Ganegama 11-2-33-0, C. Welagedera 14-4-36-0, D. Prasad 12-6-17-1, 
	R. Herath 20-5-51-3, K. Lokuarachchi 11-4-14-0, D. Perera 11-3-25-0. 
Sri Lanka A team: TT Samaraweera, MG Vandort, ML Udawatte, J Mubarak, HAPW Jayawardene, 
		SHT Kandamby, MDK Perera, KS Lokuarachchi, HMRKB Herath, WCA Ganegama, 
		UWMBCA Welegedara, KTGD Prasad