Mahela's return to form enthuses Sangakkara

Dhaka:

Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara on Friday hailed teammate Mahela Jayawardene's return to form, saying it augurs well for his team.

"Both our openers did a great job today. Mahela especially was fantastic," Sangakkara said after the 215-run stand between openers Upul Tharanga (118 not out) and Jayawardene (108) fashioned the team's facile nine-wicket win over Bangladesh in the ongoing tri-series.

Jayawardene was uncharacteristically subdued in the recent tour of India and the former Lankan was flown in here after Sri Lanka lost a number of frontline players to injury.

With a weak Bangladeshi attack at his disposal, Jayawardene struck a cracking century to announce his return to form and Sangakkara said it suited his team.

"Mahela is a key player for us and it's good to see him getting runs. He has done great job for us in the past and today he showed what he is capable of," Sangakkara said.

Sangakkara was particularly happy to have maintained a clean slate so far in the tournament and he praised the bowlers for restricting Bangladesh to under 250.

"We were lucky with toss and got the best of conditions to bowl. We enjoyed ourselves, especially the bowling effort. The wicket was a little slow to start off with, so it helped us. It was a good job by the bowlers to restrict them below 250 and then the openers did the job for us," he said.

His opposite number Shakib Al Hasan felt a score in the vicinity of 280 would have given his team a better chance in the match.

"We should have scored at least 30 more runs. We had a very good foundation, but we lost too many wickets in the Powerplay. Hopefully we'll do better next time," he said.

Tharanga, who was adjudged Man of the Match for his unbeaten century, attributed his success to a sense of security provided by the team management.

"It's been a good season for one. I came back to the side after 18 months. I wasn't under much pressure because Sanga and our coach told me 'you are playing all games'. So there was not any pressure.

"I could not convert the starts I got in the previous couple of games but once I got going today, I decided it was my day and I would convert it into a big knock," he said.