Cricket is a cruel game, or is it not? Sri Lanka, who at the beginning were rated as the favorites for the Asia Cup couldn’t even manage a single victory by the end of it.

Earlier in the morning, Mushfiqur Rahim decided to bowl first after winning the all-important toss. Mahela and Dilshan walked out to open the innings, on the other hands Mashrafe and Nazamul began the proceeding with the ball.

Didn’t take too long before Sri Lanka’s big three were back in the dressing room already. Lankan batting pillars (Mahela, Sangakkara, Dilshan) batted really casually and got out to some pretty ordinary deliveries.

Three quick wickets earlier on in the innings dented Sri Lankan hopes to get off to a flying start. As expected, a relatively inexperienced middle order couldn’t have propelled right away. Both Thrimanne and Kapugedra took their time to steady the things. After putting on a 88 runs stand of 136 balls, the pair uncoupled when Thrimanne was finally dismissed in an unfortunate fashion.

Pakistan will face Bangladesh at Chittagong Stadium for third and the final ODI of the series. Pakistan mesmerized Bangladesh in both previous ODIs as well as the one off T20 game. Though this is a dead rubber now, but Pakistan (who are looking for an improved ranking) will try their best to win the last game too. Considering the fact that Bangladesh have failed to cause any headaches for Pakistan, it’s likely that Pakistan will provide an opportunity to those, sitting out on the bench. 

Key Players:

Mohammad Hafeez:
Pakistan’s highest runs scorer this year, Mohammad Hafeez has been a revelation ever since his comeback. He exhibited fair bit of form in last 2 ODIs but failed to convert them into biggies. He’ll be desperate to go out in the middle, latch onto his form and transform that good form onto the scoring sheet.  Talking about his bowling: Bangladesh have got 6 left-handers in their bating line-up, ‘nuff said.

Second ODI between Pakistan and Bangladesh to be played tomorrow at the same venue as first two LOIs; that is the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium Dhaka. Pakistan came on top in both previous games, though not as convincingly as they would have wanted them to be.

Pakistan will be looking forward to put up an improved batting show in tomorrow’s game. On the other hand Bangladesh would want to keep it neat and simple, stick to their basics and keep Pakistani bowlers out.

Shahid Afridi:

Shahid Afridi is in top form ever since his comeback. We all know how dangerous this charismatic Pathan can be. He can influence a match victory single handedly, as he did in the last ODI. Bangladesh will try their best to keep this man out of the game in all three departments of the play. But that is going to be a real tough task for them.

Shakib ul Hassan:

For Bangladesh Shakib has been a left-handed version of Shahid Afridi thus far. A quality batsman, clever bowler and a very fine fielder. Shakib has proved his worth with ball in both LOIs, but at the same time, he has failed to deliver with the bat. Currently Bangladesh are in a dire need of any batting Messiah to stand up and perform on the given day. They’ll be hoping for Shakib to fire with the bat as well.

Mohammad Hafeez being extra careful

Mohammad Hafeez has been extra careful since last 2 games.

Which puts him under pressure initially. He did good to cope up with the strike rate at Dubai but did that in form of some risky shots.

Though certainly failed to do so in Sharjah which resulted into sheer pressure and nerve, and thus ended up slogging a regulation leg break in to the hands of deep square leg.

Angelo Matthews

Angelo Matthews has been the biggest concern for Lanka.

They must let Jeevan Mendis come ahead of him; Mendis can rotate the strike sensibly.Matthews shall follow him up with proper slogger’s role.

One innings of confident 30-40 will bring him right back in the form.

Pakistan:

 
- Poor form of Abdul Razzaq with the bat and his lethargic approach to the context of the game as well as towards the ground fielding. Need to bring Shoaib Mailk in the side.

- Umar Akmal's Mojo Jojo thinking, not a batsman on this planet can hit each and every ball, then how could you young Akmal? Need to focus more.

- Utilization of batting powerplay: so far in the ODI series Pakistan has been pathetic in powerplay overs. Trying to many different things and losing lots of wickets meanwhile has been a routine for Pakistan. Team Green must learn how to rotate the strike on regular basis during the powerplay and that is all what is required. Milk singles and doubles every ball, put bad balls away to the boundary and 40-45 runs can easily be scored of those 5 overs.  

No need to take extra risks and play brainless aerial shots.

- Sarfaraz Ahmad has a very good domestic batting record, Pakistan has failed to utilize him properly. In my book Sarfaraz is a perfect number 6. Send him up the order. Afridi to bat at number 7.

Dear boy what a finish to such a nail biter. Pakistan held their nerve in the tense finish. It always is about holding the nerve. Or is it not? Sri Lankan team did their best but could not deliver that finishing blow, which Umar Gul did for Pakistan.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan decided to bat after winning the toss, which really was not any biggy of a surprise. Pakistani openers started off really positively, putting Malinga away for 10 runs in his very first over, though that momentum did not last long as Sri Lankans pulled off the things quite wonderfully. Sri Lankans bowlers did not do anything extra-ordinary but just stuck to their basics, bowled tight off-stump lines and almost put a full stop the flow of runs for Pakistani batsmen.

Pakistani openers did not lose any heart as well; they too stuck to their basics. Maneuvered the ball through them gaps and occasionally hitting the skin off the bad balls. Farhat had rather more chances than Mohammad Hafeez to free his arms and keep his strike rate intact. Hafeez on the other hand found it real hard to put Sri Lankan pacers' tight liners away. Thus he took his time and when he had his feet moving, he took the game away from the bowlers in jiffy. Pakistan were off to a brilliant 150 runs opening start in span of 29.2 overs when Sri Lanka's desperately desired break through flashed in form of a lazy shot from the bat of a very tired Mohammad Hafeez.

Firstly, I would like to thankyou for checking out KheloPakistan.com and hope you enjoy your every visit. KheloPakistan, or KP, has been around for 2 months and has seen a great amount of success in that time, we have decided you to introduce our team to you. We would like to bring you a interview of the page owner and the creative mind behind this project to give young inspiring writers a chance to air their views on any sporting issues they like. Without more boring lectures by myself, I bring to you Danish Nawab:

Tell us about yourself?

Danish Nawab | 19 | Lahore, Pakistan

Studying Software Engineering at University of Central Punjab.  A to-be-programmer.

Total Cricket buff.

An 'aspirant' who wishes to be an 'inspirant' in the near future.

Hobbies: Watch Cricket, Play Cricket, Read Cricket, Write Cricket etc.

What are the sports that you follow and which one is your real passion? 

Cricket is my major for sure. But if you leave cricket out; I have a fair bit of knowledge about Hockey and Baseball.

Under Misbah ul Haq's captaincy Team Pakistan has played 10 matches, won 4 and lost 1 match only; which makes Team Pakistan's Win/Loss under Captain Misbah to be exactly 4.00

4.00 is the highest W/L ratio for any Pakistani Captain who has captained 10 or more test matches. Moreover Team Pakistan has never lost a series under the guidance of Misbah-ul-Haq but sure has won 2 big series.

Misbah's leadership hasn't just won the matches for us but also has affected the performance of other individual as well. 

Earlier in the day, Southwark Crown Court brought end to the most appalling scandal in the history of International Cricket, when final sentence was handed over to the guilty trio from Pakistan.

Southwark Crown Court’s Justice Cooke, in front of his jury announced the following jail time penalties for the defaulters:

• Salman Butt           :         2 years and Six months
• Mohammad Asif      :         1 year
• Mohammad Amir     :         6 months

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