Nidahas Trophy 2018: Match 5, Bangladesh vs India - Who Said What

The Indian team continued their dominance over their Asian mates in the Nidahas Trophy 2018. Coming into the game having won the last two matches the momentum was in their favour. Bangladesh too had won a thrilling match against Sri Lanka to register points in the last outing but the Team India was too hot for them to handle. Rohit Sharma & Co. won the match by 17 runs to make their way to the final.

Mahmadullah won the toss and elected to bowl first. The teams batting second had won all the matches in the series before this and thus the decision was understandable. Skipper Rohit along with Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina had two crucial partnerships which pushed the team total over 170.

Rohit who had been out of form for the entire of South Africa tour and all the matches before this got back his touch and scored a commanding 89 from 61 balls. Dhawan was bowled contributed 35 while Raina fell short of his half century by 3 runs.

Bangladesh in their pursuit lost regular wickets. The young Indian spinner Washington Sundar had a great game. He got a wicket in his very first over and in the second as well. Eventually, he finished his four overs with 3 wickets for 22 runs. Though the likes of Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Thakur were expensive India still managed to pull things back and defend their total.

Rohit was also the Man of the Match and said:

It was important for me to step up. Like I said at the toss I tried to take my time with the bat at the start. I felt we were 10-15 runs short with that bat at the middle stage. But Washington started brilliantly with the ball and his spell changed the game for us. The wicket wasn’t the usual wicket we’ve been playing on for the last well. It was gripping and was slow and that is why I wanted to take my time.

One set batsman had to bat and I knew a new batsman would find it tough. Raina has been timing the ball brilliantly and that is great to see. He is never afraid of flighting the ball, sets his own field and it says a lot about an individual. In the series we played against Sri Lanka in India we saw that from him and it paid off.

I just told Siraj to keep it simple and we knew that that was the way to contain them. I asked him to bowl that back of a length ball because we found it tough to hit. He is a great talent, has all the capabilities of doing what a fast bowler has to do and he’ll do well for us in the future.

Bangladeshi captain Mahmadullah said:

The effort was there. A bit disappointed though; had someone stood up and made 20-30 quick runs it could have made a difference with Mushy. The chase was on, we needed a good flying start. But we lost wickets early and didn’t get the momentum we needed.

We also could have conceded 10 lesser runs and that could have made the difference. The plan was to take the pace off the ball and stick to your strengths as a bowler, but they didn’t execute that well. Looking forward to the next game, the good thing is that we have a chance to prove ourselves and we need to do it.

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