Big picture: A medal to play for
Both teams have a point to prove. Bangladesh recovered well from a poor start in their semi-final against Pakistan, thanks to Towhid Hridoy’s efforts with the bat, but their bowlers couldn’t defend 111 in a 13-overs-a-side game, and Mustafizur Rahman was taken to the cleaners in one of his rare poor outings in T20Is.
But at least they ran Pakistan close. In the other semi-final, India ran riot over Sri Lanka, bowling them out for 45. Sri Lanka had a second-string side on the field, but they wouldn’t have bargained for the basic mistakes they made, like the three run-outs in their innings.
Bangladesh, who can call on most of their first-choice players, start the third-place match as clear favourites, but the testing conditions at Nisshin can even up contests that look one-sided on paper. And both teams will have the motivation of bringing joy to contingents that have endured mostly barren Asian Games campaigns.
Bangladesh LWWLL (last five completed T20Is, most recent first)
Sri Lanka LLLLL
In the spotlight: Litton Das and Sahan Arachchige
Both teams could test their bench strength in the bronze-medal match.
Sri Lanka (probable): 1 Sineth Jayawardena, 2 Lasith Croospulle, 3 Sohan de Livera (wk), 4 Nuwanidu Fernando, 5 Sahan Arachchige (capt), 6 Ashen Bandara, 7 Chamika Karunaratne, 8 Wanuja Sahan, 9 Tharindu Ratnayake, 10 Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, 11 Binura Fernando.
Bangladesh (probable): 1 Tanzid Hasan, 2 Saif Hassan, 3 Litton Das (capt), 4 Parvez Hossain Emon (wk), 5 Towhid Hridoy (c), 6 Mosaddek Hossain, 7 Mahedi Hasan, 8 Rishad Hossain, 9 Aliss Al Islam/Nasum Ahmed, 10 Shoriful Islam, 11 Mustafizur Rahman/Hasan Mahmud.
Pitch and conditions: Big cracks in Nisshin
Saturday promises to be another sunny day in Nisshin as the men’s tournament looks to end on a dry note. Through this tournament, the pitch has worn large cracks off whose edges the spinners have extracted an unusual amount of bounce.
