Hosts worry Marvan
Former Sri Lankan opener and currently the visitors' assistant coach Marvan Atapattu expects Bangladesh to come back hard in the second T20I today at the Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong.
Atapattu described Sri Lanka's two-run win as an exciting start to the limited overs matches.
“They can (come back). They are a dangerous team and we pay the respect that they deserve in this format, especially playing at home. They know the conditions better than we do. We should not be complacent, and play as well as we can,” Atapattu told reporters after a training session yesterday.
“When it comes to T20 the excitement runs till the end and there was no better example than yesterday (Wednesday). One or two mistakes and the game could have changed in a matter of six to twelve balls,” he added.
Wednesday saw the first ever T20 game at the ZACS and Atapattu admitted that the visitors were a bit surprised with the wicket.
“The wicket did surprise us a bit. Having said that, the bowlers in the middle part of the Bangladesh inning did well. They restricted our scoring. We soon understood that it is going to be slow and low as the day progressed and tried to restrict them when we bowled,” he said.
When asked if the visitors felt lucky to be on the winning side of a game where just one ball made the difference, he said, “It's not like that. That's the way the game has gone and that's the way it's going to go, you have to be strong enough,” he said.
As one of Sri Lanka's best openers, one of Atapattu's main roles in the side is to look after the batsmen. With regards to T20 cricket, his mantra is simple: “The game moves so quickly that you should be able to express yourself freely; there's no time settle in. You need to be in the right frame of mind to be successful.”
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