Bangladesh Cricket Academy XI Naeem Islam with a fighting knock of 82 saved his side from an imminent defeat in the four day encounter which petered out to a draw against the Sri Lanka Cricket Development XI concluded at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium yesterday.

Naeem’s 183 ball knock which had ten boundaries came when Bangladesh CA was struggling with five of their top batsmen back in the pavilion for just 36 runs. Coming in at number four he was the last batsman to be out.

In the process he was associated in two fruitful partnerships first for the sixth wicket of 50 with Suhrawadi Shuvo and the other of 65 runs for the seventh wicket with Ashiqul Islam which helped them reach a score of 190.

Bangladesh Cricket Academy 441 and 190 in 60.5 overs (Naeem Islam 82, Suhrawadi Shuvo 29, Ashiqul Islam 26, Imrul Kayes 16: Akalanka Ganegama 4 for 44, Jeewan Mendis 3 for 16)
Sri Lanka Cricket Development XI (376/6 overnight) 397 in 99.5 overs (Thilina Massmulla 117, Jeewan Mendis 87, Nadeera Nawela 61, Akalanka Ganegama 40, Gihan de Silva 25, Yohan de Silva 17: Marshall Ayub 2 for 16, Ziaur Rahman 2 for 39, Mahbubul Alam 2 for 82) and 32 for 2 in 12 overs (Mahbubul Alam 2 for 15)-MSA