Bangladesh stun India in the Asia Cup

Bangladesh came from behind to record a stunning win over the World Champions to stay alive in the competition. Bengalis needed a win to keep their final hopes alive while an India win could have booked their berth in the finals with Pakistan.

However, whatever happened was totally unexpected especially after the Indians had defeated a strong Srilankan side by 50 runs in their previous game. Bangladeshi captain, Mushfiqur Rahim was confident of tackling the Indian bowling and therefore had no
hesitation to field first after winning the toss.

India lost Gautam Gambhir early for 11 as he inside-edged a delivery from Shafiul Islam. Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli added 147 for the second wicket before Kohli fell to Abdur Razzak for 66. Suresh Raina kept the scoreboard moving with a few lusty hits
and brought up his fifty in no time. He was eventually out for 51 off 38 balls.

In the midst of all this, Tendulkar finally created history by bringing up his 100^th international century and was out for 114 off 147 balls. Rohit Sharma got run-out for 4. Skipper, Mahinder Singh Dhoni along with Ravindra Jadeja added 22 quick
runs in the last two overs to help India build a sizable total of 289/5 in their allotted 50 overs.

Mashrafe Mortaza picked up two wickets while Shafi and Razzak managed one wicket apiece.

Bangladesh, in reply, lost Nazimuddin cheaply for 5 before Jahurul Islam and Tamim Iqbal added 113 runs for the second wicket to give themselves some chance of troubling the Indian total. Islam finally went for 53 as Nasir Hossain joined Iqbal in the middle.

Hossain, along with Tamim, added 28 for the third wicket before the opener unfortunately lobbed a catch at point to Jadeja who took a screamer. He was dismissed for 70. As Tamim went just before the batting power play, it seemed as if the Bangladeshi hopes
have faded but Shakib Al Hasan had some other ideas.

The former captain started hitting from the word go and turned things around at the Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur. The left hander was wrongly given stumped for 49 off 31 balls but he managed to reduced the gap between the number of balls and the
runs remaining.

It all seemed meaningless when Bengal Tigers needed 33 of the last 3 overs. Irfan Pathan came under heavy treatment from little Rahim whose two sixes in that over turned the whole complexion of the game. The little skipper then whipped Praveen Kumar for
another maximum to leave Bengalis needing 2 runs of the final over.

Nasir Hossain threw his wicket away in search of a winning stroke but Mahmudullah Riad held his nerves and carved Ashok Dinda through the covers to register an emphatic win over the Men in Blue. This is Bangladesh’s third victory over India in the international
cricket.

The hosts will next be up against Srilanka and the Indians will take on Pakistan in a must-win game for Dhoni’s men. 

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Posted by Taha Habib on Mar 17 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry