A fitting send-off

There were two forces at work in the tour-ending second T20I between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa International Stadium in Colombo yesterday. There was the home team, who were determined and desperate to put a decisive marker of superiority by winning the T20I series 2-0 after 1-1 draws in the Tests and ODIs. But it was the Tigers who prevailed, and were not swayed an inch by the current of a Lasith Malinga hattrick and a Chamara Kapugedera rally with the bat, as they honoured their departing captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza by winning his last match in the format by 45 runs, thereby coming away from the tour of Sri Lanka with an equal share of each of the series played over the month-long odyssey.

And fittingly, it was Mashrafe who began Sri Lanka's end in the match. Stepping up to bowl his last over in the 16th over of the innings after having conceded 22 runs off his first three overs, he had to contend with the last dangerous seventh-wicket pair of Kapugedera and Seekkuge Prasanna. Mashrafe was hit for a four off the second ball by Kapugedera but off the fifth ball he clean-bowled Prasanna who was trying to hit across the line in an effort to keep up with the 13 runs an over asking rate. The good news continued for Bangladesh as Mustafizur Rahman confirmed a return to form by getting Kapugedera miscuing to long on in the following over for a 35-ball 50, before giving Malinga a taste of his own medicine with a full and fast delivery that clattered into the stumps. Mustafizur finished with four for 21 off three overs.

Rookie Mohammad Saifuddin then ended things with his first T20I wicket in his second match when he had Vikum Sanjaya caught at long on to end the innings at 131 in 18 overs. Mashrafe, at short fine leg, held his cap aloft and looked up to the heavens as teammates converged upon him.

What ended with respects paid to the captain began in much the same way when Mashrafe walked onto the field through a guard of honour formed by his teammates to lead Bangladesh's defence of 176.

The first ball bowled by Shakib was whacked away to the fence by Kusal Perera, the marauding player of the  match in the first T20I, but the next ball -- which spun sharply from outside off and beat the left-hander's slashing blade to crash into the stumps -- hinted at an outcome different from that of the first game. On way to another player-of-the-match performance in a landmark win, Shakib had his second wicket in the third over by having Dilshan Munaweera caught off a top-edged slog sweep. Mahmudullah got into the thick of things by having skipper Upul Tharanga caught at mid on off another slog sweep to have Sri Lanka at 40 for three after five overs.

That was the time for Mustafizur Rahman to have his say, when the batsmen have no option but to hit out. Introduced in the sixth over, a full ball had Asela Gunaratne driving uppishly to cover where Mosaddek took a juggling catch. In the next ball a near mirrored replay took place with the left-handed Milinda Siriwardene hitting the ball uppishly to point, this time to Soumya Sarkar. At five for 40, Sri Lanka's only hope was the partnership between Thisara Perera and Kapugedera, and they looked briefly threatening with a 58-run sixth-wicket stand in 7.3 overs, but that ended when Perera was stumped in the 13th over to give Shakib his third wicket.

Earlier, Soumya Sarkar and Shakib were the men who powered Bangladesh's innings after Mashrafe won the toss for the second successive time and elected to bat. The announcement this time at the toss was that first-choice opener Tamim Iqbal would not play the match as he was suffering from back pain that he first experienced while scoring 127 in the first ODI in Dambulla on March 25.

The batsmen seemed determined to prove the notion that they were not T20 hitters wrong as there were 15 fours and five sixes in their score of 176 for nine. Soumya scored 34 off 17 with four boundaries and two sixes, going after even Malinga. At one point he scored 27 runs from eight deliveries, before being undone by his innocuous tormentor Asela Gunaratne in the eighth over when he offered a simple return catch.

Shakib hit 38 off 31 and Imruyl Kayes, Tamim's replacement, was among the runs as well with a 25-ball 36. At one stage Bangladesh were 124 for two in the 14th over and were looking at a total of around 200, but Sabbir Rahman and Shakib's dismissals brought the total to a less threatening 139 for four after 16 overs.

In the 19th over, Malinga bowled Mushfiqur and Mashrafe in successive balls, before handing out a golden duck to debutant Mehedi Hasan Miraz to pick up his first hattrick in T20Is to go with three in ODIs. Malinga's hattrick put a severe dent on Bangladesh's scoring with the last five overs yielding just 40 runs for the loss of six wickets.