At least Bangladesh have 2 bowlers: War of words begin ahead of do-or-die match between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

The war of words have begun between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who will be playing a do-or-die game in the group stage to remain in the Asia Cup 2022.

The war of words has begun between the two units of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, who are set to face each other in a do-or-die game in Asia Cup on Thursday, 1 September. Speaking ahead of the game, Bangladesh team director Khaled Mahmud Sujon has taken up Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka over his comments on the Bangladeshi bowling attack. After Shanaka said that the Bangladesh team have only two good bowlers, Sujon has hit back with a jibe “at least Bangladesh have 2” as the competition heats up in the Asia Cup.

Both team were terrible against Afghanistan, with Sri Lanka unable to handle the early swing of Fazalhaq Farooqi, and Bangladesh losing their first six wickets to Afghanistan spin duo Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Rashid Khan.

"Definitely we didn't expect what happened last night but you have to take it, like...you can win, you can lose, that's okay. But the thing is that the way you go forward? How we improve in this format. So I think it is definitely a do or die match for us and if you want to play Super 4s we have to play definitely good cricket," Sujon said ahead of the game.

I think our batting needs to gel up and we need to score...not lose too many wickets in the powerplay, that's the key factor. Then if we don't lose too many wickets then we have good batsmen in the middle. So we think if we can score at least 150, 160 runs, we have a good chance to win with our bowling,” he further added.

Talking about Shanaka and his reading of the Bangladesh bowling line-up, he said that it is up to the Sri Lanka captain to express his opinions.

"It's up to Dasun actually, why he says that I don't know. Why he thinks we are...definitely maybe Afghanistan is a better T20 squad, that's why he says that. He said other things as well, he said that we have only two bowlers or something, no? I don't see any bowlers in Sri Lanka as well, to me. At least Bangladesh have two, that's very good. We have at least Mustafiz and Shakib. So I don't think they have world class bowlers as Mustafiz and Shakib, So it's not about words, it's how you play in the game that's very very important. Let's see what can happen tomorrow," Sujon concluded.