Out-of-FTP Bangladesh tour in March-April
View(s):By S.R. Pathiravithana
A home series against the invigorated Bangladesh outfit is thought provoking. Yes, the SLC administration has now lined-up just this, out of the ICC Future Tours Programme and the Bengali cricketers will be engaged in a full tour that will take them through Two Test matches, Three ODIs and two T-20 matches from March 1.
Dinesh Chandimal has been one of the successful batsmen among the younger brigade against Bangladesh.
Right now the Lankans are engaged in the tri-series against Zimbabwe and two weeks hence the Lankans will be away once again engaged in the series against South Africa starting December 14. During that full tour Lankan cricketers will play three Test matches, five ODIs and three T-20 games. This tour will conclude on February 10.
This will be followed by the tri-series involving Australia, India and Sri Lanka from 15 to 23 February – which is a T-20 series. Back in the island – seven days later the Bangladesh tour of Sri Lanka will begin and the visitors will be warming up till March 8 and the tour proper would begin with the launch of the T-20 segment with a game at the R. Premadasa Stadium on March 9. Two days later the second T-20 will be played at the same venue.
Then the gear will change to the ODI mode and there would be two 50 over matches at the Rangiri Dambulla on 15 and 18 March before moving to Pallekelle for the final ODI on the 21st. Then the serious part of the tour will begin with the five day version in focus.
This is going to be interesting. Since playing their first Test match way back in 2002, Sri Lanka is yet to drop a single Test match against Bangladesh after seven series. On the other hand Bangladesh have beaten Zimbabwe and the West Indies and a few days later added England to that list on their home soil and drew the series at 1 all.
In reality since going under the wings of Sri Lankan Chandika Hathurusinghe the Bangladesh’ winning ratio has increased in all forms of the game and certainly their quality of cricket has changed. Some of the matches during their last two series which took place home and away in 2013 and 14 were very high scoring ones. Only a batsman of the calibre of Kumar Sangakkara who was a cut above the rest in all those engagements made a marked difference.
Yes, in the present pack Dinesh Chandimal and Kaushal Silva are among the centurions, and, this series is bound to be very interesting. At the same time even skipper Angelo Mathews made some useful contributions. Besides evergreen Rangana Herath also has been a main factor in Sri Lanka winning the ties so far.
First of the two Test matches will be played at the Pallekelle Stadium, from 25 to 29 March while the second Test will be played from 2 and to 6 April either at the Galle Stadium or the R. Premadasa Stadium.
The rest of the national cricket engagements for 2017 will be — The ICC Champions Trophy tournament in the United Kingdom from June 2 to June 19. Zimbabwe tour of Sri Lanka in June-July, Indian tour of Sri Lanka July-September (3 Tests, 5 ODIs and 1 T-20), Sri Lanka tour of Pakistan in October-November (3 Tests, 5 ODIs and 1 T-20) and Sri Lanka tour of South Africa from November 2018 to January 2018 ( 3 Tests, 5 ODIs and 2 T-20s).