Indian team ended the hopes of Bangladesh for qualifying for the semi-finals of the ongoing world cup after pipping them by 28 runs in Birmingham on Tuesday. With this win, Indian team has become the second team to qualify for the semi-finals after Australia.
Earlier in the game, India won the toss and chose to bat first at a pitch which continued to get slower as the day progressed. Indian opening pair of KL Rahul(77 off 92 balls) and Rohit Sharma(104 off 92 balls) gave a solid foundation by adding 180 run for first wicket partnership.
After the fall of both the openers, Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant played their natural game but after the dismissal of the Indian captain, Bangladeshi bowlers pave their way back into the game. Hardik Pandya got dismissed on a golden duck and Dinesh Karthik who was included in place of Kedar Jadhav could only manage 8 runs.
MS Dhoni was again criticized for playing slow innings of 35 off 33 balls in the death and as a result India finished on 314/9 at the end of 50 overs. Mustafizur Rahman went through the Indian middle order as he claimed 5 wickets in the game.
Bangladesh got a solid start by Soumya Sarkar(33 off 38 balls) and Tamim Iqbal(22 off 31 balls) in pursuit to chasing 315 runs. They added 39 runs for the first wicket before Shami dismissed Tamim Iqbal. Shakib Al Hasan(66 off 74 balls) kept playing his natural game but tumbling wickets from other hand didn’t helped Bangladesh’s cause.
After the departure of Shakib, Bangladesh was struggling at 179/6 after 33.5 overs and were in all spot of bother but then came a blistering partnership between Sabbir Rahman and Mohammad Saifuddin(66 runs off 56 balls) to bring back Bangladesh into the game.
Death overs specialist Jasprit Bumrah was introduced into the attack and he clean bowler Rahman(36 off 36 balls) to give a sigh of relief to India. Saifuddin(51* pff 38 balls) kept playing his shorts and completed a half century in the game. Bangladesh kept losing wickets at the other end and fell short by 28 runs. Some late flourish by Saifuddin may have created some panic in the Indian camp but it was Jasprit Bumrah who bowled Rubel Hossain and Mustafizur Rahman on two successive balls to bowl out Bangladesh on 286/10 at the end of 48 overs. Bumrah claimed four wickets in the game.
Rohit Sharma achieve milestones
Rohit Sharma continued to make the most of his sublime form in the ongoing world cup as he went onto notch a hundred against Bangladesh in Edgbaston on Tuesday. The Mumbai batsman has surpassed the record of Sourav Ganguly who previously held the record of three hundreds in 2003 world cup in South Africa.
The 32-year-old has scored a century against South Africa, Pakistan, England and now against Bangladesh. With this feat he also equals the record for most centuries in a World Cup with Sri Lankan veteran Kumar Sangakkara who scored four centuries in 2015 world cup in Australia.
Rohit Sharma is now joint second in the list of most century scorers in World Cup history with Ricky Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara. All the three batsman have five century each. Sachin Tendulkar leads the list with 6 centuries to his name.
He was given a lifeline when he was dropped in the games where he went onto score a century. The story was no different in the game against Bangladesh as Tamim Iqbal dropped an easy catch of Sharma at deep mid wicket when he was batting at 9.
With the innings of 104 runs off 92 balls, Rohit surpassed David Warner(516 runs) to become the highest run scorer in the ongoing world cup with 544 runs. He also won the man of the match award for his blistering innings against Bangladesh.
Virat Kohli terms Rohit as the best ODI player
Rohit Sharma is the only player who has three double centuries to his name in ODI cricket. The Mumbai cricketer has a habit of converting fifties to big hundreds that can changes the complexion of the game. Virat Kohli lauded Rohit’s efforts and said that the team needs two big innings from him in the next three games(Game against Sri Lanka on 6th June, semi-final and final)
“I have been watching it for years now, I have been saying it publicly, in my opinion Rohit is the best One-day player. When he plays, we are heading towards a big score and really happy with the way he’s playing,” Kohli said at the post match presentation.
India will next face a low lying Sri Lanka who are allready out of the world cup. The game will be played in a pace friendly conditions of Leeds on July 6th.
(Picture credits: Twitter)
