Sports Desk:

A new-look Bangladesh side will be looking forward to start the three-match one-day international series on a winning note when they take on hosts Sri Lanka in the first match at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo today.

The match is scheduled to start at 3:00pm Bangladesh time and will be telecast live on BTV, GTV and Maasranga TV.

Bangladesh, who found themselves without Sakib al Hasan and Liton Das before the announcement of the squad, suffered two more big blows before flying to Sri Lanka with regular skipper Mashrafee bin Murtaza and all-rounder Mohammad Saifuddin getting ruled out of the series for injury.

The Tigers included five cricketers as their replacements in the squad – Taijul Islam, Anamul Haque, Taskin Ahmed, Farhad Reza and the latest Shafiul Islam and all of them were waiting to grab their chances to revive their ODI career.

The absence of Mashrafee forced the team management to give the responsibility of leading the side to experienced campaigner Tamim Iqbal, who is set to be the 14th ODI captain for the Tigers in the first match.

Bangladesh also received a massive boost ahead of the opening game as they notched up a convincing five-wicket win over Sri Lanka Board President’s XI on Tuesday with the team showing overall improvements in all three departments.

Interim skipper Tamim in his pre-match press-conference said that they were concentrating on a good start in the contest and were aiming to win the game as well as the series.

‘For this moment, we are aiming to do well in the first session. I always prefer to see the start before talking about the finishing line. We have to start well tomorrow [today] whether we bat or bowl first,’ Tamim told reporters in Colombo.

‘Our main target will be winning the game. We want to move by one step. If you ask to their skipper he will say about their target of winning the series and so am I. We have to look after all the small things and do it properly,’ he added.

The three-match ODI series will be the first bilateral assignment for the Tigers after the horrific Christchurch attack in March, which killed 51 people and Bangladesh team barely escaped from the shooting.

The series is also the biggest cricketing event in the island nation after Easter bombings in April, which took away 259 lives and injured 500 people and the series was initially in a jolt to take place in time.

Sri Lanka, however, convinced Bangladesh about their security arrangements and now they will like to win the first match to give a proper farewell to their legendary pacer Lasith Malinga, who will hang up his boots after the match.

The 35-year old, who has played more than 300 international matches and taken 533 wickets, had earlier confirmed that it would be his last appearance in ODI format and he would not be available for the remaining two matches.

‘The best thing we can give for him is winning the match and that’s what we are planning,’ Sri Lankan skipper Dimuth Karunaratne said on Thursday.

‘He has been our main bowler for the last few years. And I think we will miss him and I don’t think no one can replace him.

‘We could have asked him to stay for couple of more years. But he wanted to give chance to the youngsters for grooming them for the next World Cup so we have accepted it. And we will try to give him the best farewell on this first one day,’ he added.

But both team’s plans could end up getting squashed by bad weather, as there was a heavy chance of rain interrupting the proceedings, much like their World Cup fixture, which got washed out.