Tigers face Lions Thursday

Bangladesh will face Sri Lanka in their opening Group B encounter in the Asia Cup-2023 at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Kandy Thursday.

Bangladesh will face Sri Lanka in their opening Group B encounter in the Asia Cup-2023 at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Kandy today (Thursday).

The match will start at 3:30pm (BST) and will be telecast live on T Sports.

Bangladesh will come as favourite in the match despite losing their last ODI series against Afghanistan-- that too at their home condition.

The Tigers reached the final of the Asia Cup three times but never could lift the trophy. However they want to break that jinx in this edition with captain Shakib Al Hasan focusing on to winning start to get a momentum for the whole tournament.

Overall in Asia Cup, the two teams met 15 times with Sri Lanka winning 12 of them. But in the last five Asia Cup matches, Bangladesh won three, giving a testament how fast they closed the gap against Sri Lanka, who once was invincible against them.

In total, the two teams met 51 times in ODI format of cricket with Sri Lankan emerging as winner for 40 times while Bangladesh won 9 matches. The rest of the two matches were washed out.

Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan (Captain), Najmul Hossain Shanto, Towhid Hridoy, Mushfiqur Rahim, Afif Hossain, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, Mustafizur Rahman, Shoriful Islam, Nasum Ahmed, Mahedi Hasan, Naim Sheikh, Shamim Hossain Patwari, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Anamul Haque Bijoy

Sri Lanka: Dasun Shanaka (capt), Pathum Nissanka, Dimuth Karunaratne, Kusal Mendis (wk), Kusal Perera, Dhananjaya de Silva, Charith Asalanka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Dunith Wellalage, Maheesh Theekshana, Matheesha Pathirana, Kasun Rajitha, Dushan Hemantha, Binura Fernando, Pramod Madushan