As the two teams kicked off their Champions Trophy campaign in Dubai, Shubman Gill’s unbeaten 101 helped India start the nervy chase with a six-wicket win over Bangladesh.
Needing a tricky 229 for victory on a seemingly tough pitch on Thursday, India rode on Gill’s second successive one-day international]ODI] ton to achieve their target with 21 balls to spare.
Due to political unrest, title favorites India will not play their matches against Pakistan at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
In his opening game, Bangladesh were reduced to 35-5 before returning to manage 228 all out after choosing to bat first, but Pace spearhead Mohammed Shami set up victory with 5-53.
“With the bat, yes we were under pressure a bit”, India captain Rohit Sharma said. “But when you are playing a game like this, you are bound to be under pressure”.
Bangladesh won the toss, but they quickly found themselves in trouble at Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
With some help from sloppy Indian fielding, including two dropped catches, Towhid Hridoy and Jaker Ali (68), who scored 100 for his first ODI total, helped lift the score from the shaky start.
In reply, India started strongly as Rohit Sharma and Gill got going with regular boundaries. Rohit became just the 10th batsman – and fourth from India – to surpass 11, 000 ODI runs.
In a largely empty stadium, the India captain made 41 before being dismissed by Taskin Ahmed and Virat Kohli.
Before mistiming a late cut backward point off leg-spinner Rishad Hossain, Kohli made 22 balls to get his first run.
After Rishad and Mustafizur Rahman removed Axar Patel and Shreyas Iyer, India fell to 144-4, and two more wickets were lost.
But vice-captain Gill, who was player of the series with 259 runs in India’s 3-0 ODI sweep of England last week, kept calm as he and KL Rahul took the team home in an unbeaten 87-run stand.
With Gill’s eighth ODI century, India never let up after Rahul was 41 not out but Jaker dropped him early in his innings at deep midwicket.
Shami, who had six five-wickets in 104 ODIs to start, was the bowling hero, beating only Jasprit Bumrah, who had a back injury to make the tournament’s suspension.
Soumya Sarkar was caught behind for a five-ball duck when Shami struck in the first over.
Left-arm spinner Axar struck twice in two balls to send Tanzid Hasan (25) and Mushfiqur Rahim, for a duck, trudging back to the pavilion.
If Rohit hadn’t dropped a catch on the first slip, denied Axar a hat-trick, and granted Jaker a reprieve on the catch, the game might have been six.
Jaker, who survived another chance on 24 when wicketkeeper Rahul missed a stumping, and Towhid, dropped on 23 by Hardik Pandya at mid-off, combined to thwart the Indian charge.
Towhid continued to fight until his 118-ball knockout ended with six fours and two sixes after Jaker fell to Shami.
“In 10 overs, we lost five wickets”, Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto reflected. It cost us the game because it’s so difficult to recover.
Shanto also criticized the fieldwork of his team. We had a few field mistakes, including a few dropped catches and a few runouts. If we could take those catches, it could be different”, he said.
Source: Aljazeera
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