Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni has heaped praise on young fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah for overcoming a horror start to bowl his tense late overs, which eventually turned out to be crucial in India’s nerve-wracking one-run win over Bangladesh in their penultimate league game of the World Twenty20 in Bengaluru.
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– This is the fifth time Bangladesh have scored over 40 runs in the overs 16-20 in a chase in World T20. Bangladesh needed two runs to win and one run to force a decisive Super Over.
Mushfiqur Rahim cut for four, then scooped another boundary past Dhoni to give Bangladesh a clear advantage but then fell to hand India the opportunity of a spectacular comeback victory.
Dhoni battled to an unbeaten 13 runs off 12 balls.
The decision went to the third umpire, who didn’t have to struggle in ruling in India’s favour.
We’re really excited at the prospect of seeing the Men in Blue in action in Bangalore. The kind of cricket we are playing in the last two to three months, we are all happy and satisfied.
Dhoni needs five more runs to reach 1000 runs in T20Is.
“So, we need to be careful and we need to be very disciplined with our bowling and fielding to restrict them”, Shakib told reporters on the eve of Bangladesh-India encounter here.
But Mushfiqur holed out to mid-wicket, the next ball saw Mahmudullah do the same and Shuvagata Hom missed the final ball and made a vain attempt to steal a single to level the scores.
Earlier Bangladesh captain won the toss and asked India to bat first. The Chinnaswamy stadium cricket pitch is said to be bouncy and pacy but overall a good batting wicket.
For Bangladesh, Al Amin and Mustafizur picked up 2 wickets, followed by one each by Shakib, Suvagata and Mahmudullah.
But its total of 146 seemed below par, thanks to some gritty bowling by Bangladesh, which was looking to beat India in this format for the first time.
However, a close look at the current form of the two teams would make India outright favourites for the match even though Bangladesh have built a reputation of upstaging big teams in big events. Bumrah mis-fielded off the first ball and conceded a four; Tamim Iqbal, the batsman who hit the shot, had his eye on the ball and bumped into Ashish Nehra.
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Indian openers Dhawan (23) and Rohit Sharma (18) put on a patient 42-run partnership before both lost their wickets in the space of six balls as they tried to accelerate. He then took Ravindra Jadeja, his best fielder from the cover region and positioned him at deep mid-wicket, replacing Dhawan who had just taken a catch in the previous delivery.
