Tigers play for pride today
Al Musabbir Sadi from Colombo
With the one-day series already lost, Bangladesh will be left with only pride to play for in Sunday's third and final game against Sri Lanka.The match at the Premadasa Stadium, which begins at 10 am, will be shown live on Bangladesh Television and satellite channel TEN Sports. Though the third game is of academic interest, both teams might be forced to make some tactical changes especially as the Sri Lankan capital has been experiencing inclement weather for the past few days. The Tigers, however, will go with their best team, informed Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar said after Saturday's long team meeting. "It's like any other match and we don't have a different plan. It's the last match of the series and we just want to improve in all departments." "We are going to play with our best team and our approach will be normal. We have not planned anything extra to accelerate our batting. It will be adjusted time to time during the match. Also, the players have been instructed to be flexible about batting order," said Bashar, who himself batted down the order in the second match. The players skipped training and only used the hotel pool for swimming in the morning. Bangladesh will make one change from the previous team with Khaled Mahmud regaining his position in place of Nazmul Hossain. "Mahmud will be our supersub tomorrow but if conditions change in the morning, we may change the decision," added Bashar, who would prefer to bat first. Meanwhile, the hosts also had optional practice on the eve of the match. It was expected that they would experiment with the squad. Both Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas would sit out Sunday's game. But veteran Sanath Jayasuriya was expected to play.
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