Lasith Malinga takes wicket on last ball of ODI career as Sri Lanka beat Bangladesh
Lasith Malinga ended his ODI career on a high as he took a wicket off the last ball of his ODI career as Sri Lanka beat Bangladesh by 91 runs in the first ODI of the three-match series at the R.Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.
Malinga got the wicket of Mustafizur Rahman the second-last ball of his ODI career to finish with 338 wickets from 226 ODIs and finished as the 9th highest wicket-taker in the 50-over format. He overtook Anil Kumble, who had 337 wickets from 271 matches.
Malinga picked up the wickets of Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar at the beginning and returned to get the 'Fizz' in the fourth ball of his last over in ODI cricket and finished with figures of 3/38 from 9.4 overs.
Thanks to Malinga's opening burst, Bangladesh could never kick on in the chase of 315 minus the experience of Shakib Al Hasan in the middle-order, who has been rested for the series.
"He's (Lasith Malinga) a legend. He's done good work for Sri Lanka for many years. Today, he did a great job. He put his hand up and did the job for me. We really miss Maali Ayya, hopefully he'll play the T20s," said Lanka skipper Karunaratne in a fitting tribute to Malinga.
Earlier, Sri Lanka rallied around Kusal Perera's fifth one-day international century to post 314/8.
Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne won the toss and elected to bat first but his openers failed to get a solid start. Avishka Fernando (7) was caught by Soumya Sarkar off seamer Shafiul Islam with the total on 10.
But Karunaratne and Perera combined for a 97-run partnership for the second wicket before the captain was dismissed for 36 runs. Perera was then joined by Kusal Mendis (43) and the pair then put on 100 runs in 106 balls for the third wicket.
Perera made 111 runs off 99 balls, including 17 boundaries and a six.
Shafiul Islam took three wickets for Bangladesh.
(With inputs from AP)
