Fast bowler Lasith Malinga scripted a dream ending to his one-day international career with a three-wicket spell that helped Sri Lanka to a 91-run win against Bangladesh in the opener of a three-match one-day international series on Friday.
Malinga's final figures of three for 38 in 9.4 overs complemented a classy 111 from No. 3 batsman Kusal Perera, who lifted Sri Lanka to 314 for eight in 50 overs after electing to bat first. Angelo Mathews scored 48 and Kusal Mendis contributed 43 runs for Sri Lanka's innings.
Shafiul Islam took three wickets for Bangladesh.
Malinga directed his typical yorkers to dismiss openers Tamim Iqbal (0) and Soumya Sarkar (15) to reduce Bangladesh to three for 30. Mushfiqur Rahim scored 67 and Sabbir Rahman made 60 in a brief fight.
Malinga also picked up the last wicket of the Bangladesh innings when Thisara Perera held a skier from tailender Mustafizur Rahman.
Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne won the toss and elected to bat first in the first session but his openers failed to make a good start. Opener Avishka Fernando was dismissed for seven runs with the score on 10. Karunaratne and Perera shared 97 runs for the second wicket before the captain was caught by Mustafizur Rahman off spin bowler Mehedy Hasan. Then Perera was joined by Kusal Mendis )and the pair shared 100 runs for the third wicket.
Perera completed his fifth one-day international century and was dismissed for a 99-ball 111, which included a six and 17 boundaries.
The 35-year-old Malinga ends his 226-match one-day international career with 338 wickets.
"We always try to take two wickets within the first 10 overs because that's how we can achieve some stability to go toward winning," Malings said. "This is all what I tried to do all this time. Sometimes it worked and other times it did not. Really happy to take three wickets and end my last game with a win."
He said he retires after a fulfilling career and wants to see the younger bowlers in the Sri Lankan side emerging as match winners.
Bangladesh captain Iqbal said even though his bowlers gave up early runs he was confident of chasing 314.
"We started poorly with the ball, we gave away way too many easy boundaries specially to Kusal (Perera). His first six, seven boundaries were really bad balls," Iqbal said.
"The whole batting was disappointing; starting from the top till the end."
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