The country's lesser known young cricketers gave sport-slovers some caupe to cheer about as Bangladesh clinched the title in a seven-nation International youth cricket tournament In the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

According to a faxed message. the Bangladeshi colts won the final at the Kilat ground by a convincing margin of 53 runs to exact a precious revenge over the teenage Lankan cricketers who had earlier prevailed over them narrowly in a round robin league encounter Friday.

Batting first Bangladesh rattled up an adequate total of 241 for seven wickets from their stipulated quota of 50 overs.

Opener Javed Omar Belim .Golla, who was later named

man*of-the-match. topscored with 71 made from 101 balls.

Mustadir Litu followed him with a 70-ball 46 while the solid and consistent middle-

order bat Imtiaz Zakaria remained unbeaten on a breezy 41 off 50 balls.

Vice-captain and wicketkeeper Khaled Masud Pilot cracked a timely 26 off 20 balls in the slog overs.

One-drop Mihrab Hossain Opee. who had earlier scored the only century for Bangladesh in this tournament, was the other notable scorer with 27.

The Sri Lankan newball bowlers, who wrought havoc with the Bangladeshi upper order batting in the previous encounter which Sri Lanka won by one wicket, could not do much apart from sending back opener Shahrlar Hossain Blplab cheaply.

C Fernando was the pick of the bowlers finishing with two for 26 from six overs. Perera also bagged two scalp* but gave away 57 run» Boteju. Hewage and the other Fernando collected one each

The Bangladeshi bowlers bowled a tight line and kept the Sri Lankan batsmen under pressure throughout Although young Sajal Chowdhury wasted the new ball Sri Lanka lost wickets at regular intervals and at 79 for five their vtctory target of 242 front 50 overs at an asking rate ol 4.94 looked a long way off

However some enterpris mg batting by R Fernando, who made 60 before perishing to Rakib Hassan Happt rekindled the Lankan hopes in tandem with Jayasinghe. who had played a match winning innings of 47 in the previous encounter between the two

Jayasinghe did not disap point this time around but his 31 cut short by a catch behind the wicket off Sajal was just not enough

Bangladesh captain Naimur Rahman Durjoy who was adjudged man-of the tournament and won a bat bearing the autograph of record-breaking West Indian cricketer Brian Lara for his all round displays, applied the brakes with his off-spin and the Sri Lankan in-

nlnga from a reasonably chai lengtng position of 143 for six. swiftly folded for 169 in 45 1 overs with the last four wickets falling for 46 runs.

Left arm new ball bowler Morshed All Khan Sunion was the beat Bangladeshi bowler claiming two for 23 from seven overs

Mustadlr Litu completed a fine all round performance lieggmg two for 25.

King Tunku Sultan Zafar Shah of Malaysia witnessed the final while Tunku Imran, the president of the Malaysian Cricket Association. gave away the prizes.

Bangladesh reached the fi nal beating Papua New Guinea -by 123 run*. Hong Kong by 258 runs, Denmark by eight wickets. East and Central Africa by ten wickets and hosts Malaysia on a better run rate in a rain affected game

Srl Lanka spoiled Bangla desh's possibilities of emerging unbeaten champions with a one-wicket defeat tn the other encounter en route to the final.

Scoreboard on page 10