SL aim to dismiss Tamim early
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Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne said they are aiming to dismiss Bangladesh's top scorer in the first Test Tamim Iqbal as soon as possible. Tamim's 90 off 101, despite not scoring a century, helped Bangladesh get on track for their massive total, before his 74 not out off 98 in the second innings ended any hope of a Sri Lankan victory, after the hosts had taken two fast wickets.
In general, Tamim has been successful in Sri Lanka. His 82 off 125 balls on the previous tour helped Bangladesh chase down a difficult target in Colombo, resulting in their only Test victory over Sri Lanka.
"We might have both Dhananjaya de Silva and Ramesh Mendis in the team, so we'd have two offspinners, and in the last few series Tamim hasn't played offspinners that well," Karunaratne said ahead of the second Test.
"The first five or ten overs, Suranga Lakmal also has a good chance of getting him out. The way Tamim plays, there are lbw opportunities. So we've got plans like that. If that doesn't work, we'll try to get him into a defensive mode,"
In addition to averaging 62.85 in Sri Lanka, Tamim also has an excellent strike rate of 62.14 on the island. Sri Lanka believe tamping down his scoring rate may mean a lower average too.
"Tamim scores quickly and really tries to unsettle the bowlers and put them under pressure. It's possible that if we try to reduce his rate of scoring, the chances of him making a mistake are higher. In the first Test we tried very hard to get him out, and what happened was that we leaked a lot of runs. In this match we're planning to close up his big scoring areas and get him to play more defensively. When he attacks more, we do give away a lot of runs, and it's hard for us to recover."
