Well..at the end of the day, the Sri Lankan team looked somewhat relieved, after winning the second test match against Bangladesh. This was however expected. Meaning a Sri Lankan win was expected and not a Bangladeshi fight back. On one hand, if there is a team in Australia who are found to lose their fearsomeness, Bangladesh on the other hand are coming up with surprises in test cricket as well after some amazing ones in one day internationals. Anyway, lets keep that aside for the moment. Coming to the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh tests, I feel Sri Lanka would be saying a "Oh! no never again". That was the trauma that the Sri Lankan team had to go through the series against Bangladesh.
Of course, Sri lanka would have never expected Bangladesh to come back so strongly at them whatsoever. But, Bangladeshis are no morons to not take the advantage of the over confident Sri Lankan team. I still cannot recall as to hoe the Sri Lankan team could manage a win in the first test against Bangladesh at Mirpur, when Bangladesh had gone past 400 runs. Finally, the Sri Lankan team had to rely on their old war horses Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis to register a win at Mirpur. Not to forget Sangakkara and Jayawardane who did the job with the bat for Sri Lanka.
After this match, Sri lankan captain Mahela Jayawardane never repeated the mistake what he did at Mirpur and was over cautious so as to settle a win in the second test without any trouble. Of course, the captain can never ever afford to forget this nightmare, which didn't even win the man of the match award for any of his team mates.However, the approach to the second test was not at all satisfactory. For, against a team like Bangladesh, the other teams take as much chances as possible, so as to bring in the lesser experienced ones to face the challenges of the international arena. But, Jayawardane went in with a full strengthed team to face Bangladesh in the second test.
The same old faces of Mahela and Dilshan batting and the same Murali bowling. And look at the target what Sri Lanka imposed on the Bangladesh team. A whooping 624 runs! For, a total of just above 400 would have been more than sufficient against Bangladesh, Jayawardane took no chances absolutely to put pressure on the bowlers. It would not be wrong to say the Mahela Jayawardane didn't have enough guts to dictate the bowling on the Bangladeshi batsmen. Jayawardane never wanted to take chances against even Bangladesh, fearing a major upset to him and his team. A fear of losing a test to Bangladesh was always there in the minds of Mahela Jayawardane. Mahela's efforts to win the test against Bangladesh would have even outclassed Smith's efforts to win the ongoing test series against South Afrcia.
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