U-19s win in tight finish

The Bangladesh Under-19 team clinched a dramatic 13-run win over Sri Lanka Under-19 in the first youth Test to take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series at the NCC ground in Colombo yesterday.

The youth bowlers led the way to the thrilling win in defence of a small target of 137 on the fourth and final day and eventually bundled out their opponents for just 123.

Chamindu Wijesinghe's 29 was the highest scorer for Sri Lanka while Sonal Dinusha added 24 as the home side kept losing wickets at regular intervals.

Sahin Alam and Rakibul Hasan bagged three wickets each while Shoriful Islam and Shamim Hossain took a wicket each for Bangladesh.

Resuming the fourth day on 18 for one in their second innings, Bangladesh fell to a horrible batting collapse and were eventually all out for just 115 runs.

Middle-order batsman Akbar Ali top-scored with 42 off 74 balls, which included five fours, but none of his other teammates were able to contribute with the bat as they kept losing wickets in clusters.

Off-spinner Ashian Daniel bagged four wickets while left-arm spinner Rohan Sanjaya took three wickets for Sri Lanka.

Earlier, Bangladesh were all out for 309 in their first innings with Amite Hasan top-scoring with 64 runs while skipper Towhid Hridoy added 54 runs for the visitors.

The visitors managed to get the first-innings lead after restricting Sri Lanka to 288 during which Sonal Dinusha struck a century for the home side.

Bangladesh will take on Sri Lanka in the second and final match of the youth Test series from October 23 at the Katunayake - MCG.

The youths will then lock horns in the five-match youth ODI series with the first starting from October 30.