Rohit, Sundar take India to final as Bangladesh lose by 17 runs

Rohit Sharma’s 89 off 61 and Washington Sundar’s early strikes have taken India to the final of the tri-nation series in Sri Lanka after  Bangladesh lost their third match by 17 runs despite Mushfiqur Rahim’s fightback.

Sports Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 14 March 2018, 01:57 PM
Updated : 14 March 2018, 05:33 PM

Chasing 177 to win, Mushfiqur scored 72 off 55 with eight boundaries and one six in NIDAHAS Trophy T20 tournament at R Premadasa International Cricket Stadium in Colombo on Wednesday.

The wicketkeeper-batsman’s 72 off 35 had earned the Tigers a victory over Sri Lanka after chasing their record highest of 215 in the last match.

Sundar took the wickets of openers Liton Das and Tamim Iqbal, and Soumya Sarkar, putting Bangladesh in trouble at 40 for 3.

The pressure mounted on the Tigers when Yuzvendra Chahal took the wicket of skipper Mahmudullah after Bangladesh added 21 more runs.

Sabbir Rahaman (27 off 23) provided some support to Mushfiqur before being bowled by Shardul Thakur.

The Tigers were 126 for 5 at the time, 50 runs behind India’s total with 22 balls remaining.

Mehidy Hasan played 6 balls and scored 7 runs in his bid to keep Mushfiqur at the striking end, but in the final overs, the Tigers failed to score as much as the Indians could.  

Earlier, India skipper Rohit smashed 89 runs off 61 balls by hitting five boundaries and as many sixes. Shikhar Dhawan’s 35 off 27 and Suresh Raina’s 47 off 30 added to the challenging total.

Rubel Hossain was the most successful bowler, taking the wickets of Dhawan and Raina, and also had Rohit run out in the 20th over.

The right-arm pacer gave away 27 runs in his four overs.

Spinner Mehidy Hasan and pacer Taskin Ahmed’s replacement Abu Hider bled more than 10 runs per over.

Taskin took one wicket giving away 40 runs in 3 overs in the Tigers’ win after chasing 214 against Sri Lanka on Mar 10. 

Bangladesh won the toss and put India in to bat first on Wednesday. In the four games played in the series, the teams that chose to bowl first after winning the toss have gone on to win the match.

India, who won their previous two matches against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the tournament, brought right-arm medium fast Mohammed Siraj in place of Jaydev Unadkat.

Bangladesh:

Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Liton Das, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Mahmudullah (capt), Sabbir Rahman, Mehidy Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman, Abu Hider, Rubel Hossain, Nazmul Islam.

India:

Rohit Sharma (capt), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Vijay Shankar, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj.