Confident of reaching the final: Saif Hassan

Bangladesh batter Saif Hasan who blitzed a timely half-century for Bangladesh in the win against Sri Lanka was confident of making the final for the inter-continental cup.

Bangladesh, who were on the verge of being knocked out of the Asia Cup in the group stage, came up with a clinical batting display to earn a four-wicket win.

Attacking half-centuries from Saif Hassan (61) and Towhid Hridoy (58) helped Bangladesh stun Sri Lanka to begin the Super Fours on the right note. Bangladesh will take on India and Pakistan respectively on September 24 and 25 and would like to come up with similar performances against their Asian neighbours.

"Yes, definitely we are confident of reaching the final," said Saif, who scored 61 runs from 45 balls coming to open the innings to lay the platform for the morale-boosting win. "Before coming here, everyone believed that we would play the final," he said.

"We are one step ahead and still there are two more matches for us, and our next focus is only on the next match," he said.

"Definitely, one should dream and one should dream big but we should proceed step by step. Our next focus will be fully on the match against India and the match after that will be seen later," he said.

Saif added that after Tanzid Tamim departed early for a duck, him and Litton Kumar Das decided to counter-attack and thanked his senior partner for guiding him during that moment.

Having lost lost Tanzid for a duck in the opening over, Bangladesh then fell to 60 for two after six overs when Litton Das, the captain, was caught behind for 23 off 16 balls.

Later, Saif along with Hridoy steadied the ship in a 54-run stand that kept Bangladesh ahead of the required rate and countered Sri Lanka's disciplined bowling from Nuwan Thushara, Dushmantha Chameera, and Wanindu Hasaranga.

"After the wicket fell (Tanzid) our plan was to counter-attack. There wasn't a very specific plan, but we held a team meeting. Communication was good and Litton could anticipate what the next ball would be and that's what he was telling me and Alhamdulillah, it worked," said Saif.

"During the PowerPlay, since there are field restrictions one should obviously cash in and obviously we have team meetings before the match and there is a specific plan against every bowler. Everyone has their own individual plan and we just try to deliver according to our plan," he said.

On the bowling standpoint, Saif praised Mustafizur Rahman who delivered in crisis, and picked 3 for 20 in his spell.

"Mustafizur Bhai's bowling is always good. He has been in very good shape for the last few months. Today, he gave away such few runs and took wickets at vital moments He is a World Class Bowler, so these situations are easy for him.

"You can see it that whenever he bowls, the team is usually in a crisis situation and he always comes in to bowl during moments of danger and he delivers most of the time," he said. "So, I think he is a match player who is very impactful in the team's crisis situations.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan all-rounder Dasun Shanaka said that they were 15 to 20 runs short and paid the price for it.

"Nothing went wrong actually. So it was a good match...and we were 10-15 runs short.

"Actually, 160 was what we initially kept in mind because this was a wicket where runs could be scored. But while batting, we realized we could post around 180. However, they had two good bowling overs. In the 19th over, I think I couldn't hit a boundary. It was because they bowled well in those last two overs that we were limited to 168," he said, whose unbeaten 64 runs went in vain.

"I think there was a difference of two boundaries. Wanindu Hasaranga got out on the line while trying for those two. So I think if we had gotten those boundaries, we could have reached our required target but I think 168 was defendable," he said.

Shanaka added that they also could not put pressure on Bangladesh as their bowling unit could not deliver as per expectation.

"I think more than the fifth bowler, it was the execution. If we look at previous matches, Thushara and Chameera bowled a lot of balls hitting the wicket. In this match, I don't know, those two weren't able to hit that target (length/spot)," said Shanaka.

"I always believe that if you can take wickets early with the new ball, it gives a huge advantage to the spinners. We weren't able to do that. Specifically, the opponent played well. I think it was due to our small mistakes that it slipped away. Many things can happen on a pitch like this. Yes, actually our team played a good match. We have two matches remaining in India and Pakistan. If we can win those two matches with a good run rate, we can reach the final. So we are always on the positive side," he said.