Bangladesh, in their quest for second Asian Games medal from cricket, will meet mighty Sri Lanka in the semi-final in Guangzhou, China, today. The crucial Twenty20 match will start at 11:30am at the Guangdong Cricket Stadium.
Sri Lanka set up the semi-final clash after they had defeated Nepal by two wickets in Wednesday’s quarter-final.
AFP adds: Mighty Sri Lanka, the world’s third-best Test team, looked distinctly second-rate on Wednesday when minnows Nepal came agonisingly close to pulling off a stunning Asian Games upset.
Despite boasting 11 players in their squad who have played international one-day cricket, Sri Lanka only squeezed past Nepal’s amateurs by two wickets.
Thursday’s other last-four showdown will feature Pakistan against Afghanistan who comfortably saw off Hong Kong by eight wickets in their quarter-final.
After Nepal had been restricted to 72 all out, with former Test player Jehan Mubarak claiming three wickets, Sri Lanka reached 31-1 before suffering a worrying middle-order collapse, losing six wickets for just 11 runs.
Captain Paras Khadka, Basant Regmi and Amrit Bhattarai took two wickets each for Nepal, who play in the World Cricket League Division Four.
But Sri Lanka steadied themselves and Sajeewa Weerakoon hit the winning runs with seven balls to spare.
‘We didn’t win easily. Nepal did well and Sri Lanka should have done much better,’ said Sri Lanka team manager Ranjit Fernando.
‘The match against Bangladesh will be much tougher, but we are fully prepared. It was our first match today, so we didn’t know the field well enough. Tomorrow [today] our performance will be much better.’
Earlier, Afghanistan restricted Hong Kong to just 63 in a one-sided contest.
Hong Kong had no answer to Afghan opening pair Shahpur Zadran and Merwais Ashraf, slumping to 15-6 in the eighth over.
Zadran grabbed 2-9 and Ashraf took 3-8 in their allotted four-over spells as the Hong Kong batsmen looked out of their depth on a pitch offering some encouragement to the bowlers.
Hong Kong’s opening bowlers Aizaz Khan and Irfan Ahmed looked lively but failed to make the early breakthroughs required and Afghanistan reached their target in the 14th over for the loss of just two wickets.
Mohammad Shahzad and Nawroz Mangal both finished unbeaten on 20.
Last year Afghanistan rose to the International Cricket Council’s Division One, narrowly missing out on a place in the World Cup to be held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh next year.
They qualified for the World Twenty20 held in the West Indies earlier this year by winning qualifying rounds in Dubai.
