A special victory

Soon after Al-Amin Hossain delivered the last ball, the fielders from the deep excitedly charged in towards the wicket in synchronised manner; almost as though they had practiced celebrating in training.

The elation on the faces perhaps best reflected the immense amount of work that they had done in this format over the last few months.

The intensity of the celebrations yesterday was perhaps even a degree higher than when Bangladesh beat India and South Africa in the ODIs last year; and this was despite the fact that it wasn't even a close finish.

The emotion probably poured out because deep inside the players knew that yesterday's win was special. Never did the Tigers manage to win a T20 game after making such a terrible start. They were reduced to 26 for 3 in the first five overs and considering their lack of confidence in this format of the game, they had to scale a mountain to go on and win this one.

It needed a special effort, and that came in the form of Sabbir Rahman. An innings of such stature does not come that often in T20s for Bangladesh and the numbers show that. Sabbir's 80 is the fourth highest T20I score by a Bangladeshi. Nazimuddin had scored an 81 in 2007, while Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal posted scores of 84 and 88 respectively in two games in 2012.

Once Sabbir laid the platform, Bangladesh's balanced bowling attack did the rest.

It therefore wasn't a surprise to see an extremely happy and relaxed Mashrafe Bin Mortaza at the post-match press conference yesterday. Sabbir's innings might have been unique, but the skipper was barely surprised.

“Sabbir always had the ability. He just managed to execute today. We always give Sabbir the license to play the way he wants to. Had he not played those drives, we wouldn't have been able to come out of pressure and put these many runs on the board,” said Mashrafe.

The wicket had less grass on it yesterday and the skipper admitted that aspect made it a bit easier for Bangladesh's batsmen. He however believed that a score of 160 would have been ideal. And that's why he felt that his bowlers should be given as much credit as Sabbir.

“The bowlers bowled in the right areas and to the field. The wicket was gripping and a little slow, which made it a bit easy for us. Once I saw that, I immediately decided to keep Mustafizur [Rahman] for the end,” said Mashrafe.

With Bangladesh just one win away from the final -- their last game is against Pakistan -- the most expected question was brought up towards the end. Did Mashrafe foresee a second Asia Cup final for the Tigers?

He smiled for a bit and provided, as expected of him, a practical answer: "No comments," he smiled. "We are going to take this match by match."

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathews said that the approach used by his batsmen was 'poor' and that was what led to their defeat.

“We had a tall batting order but the run-rate started creeping up. I thought the wicket was good for batting, but our shot selection was not up to the mark. Credit to the Bangladesh bowling, they really did well,” he said.