Dhanjaya Senaratne from Dubai for SriLankaSports.com
It’s One Day Cricket and if you let your opponent to come back, it’ll be difficult to negotiate from there onwards. Bangladesh was five wickets down for 35 after nine overs but they managed to score 228 mainly due to couple fielding lapses by Indians. Yet, with a classy unbeaten century, Shubman Gill proved that world’s number one ODI batsman is an Indian.
India registered an easy six wickets win against Bangladesh in Dubai today, with a healthy net run rate (+0.408) which could be useful for them as the tournament unfolds. Gill finished the job on 101 not out and KL Rahul was unbeaten on 41. The fifth wicket pair added 87 runs after India lost Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel inside 11 runs.
It was Gills slowest ODI century but the left handed opener didn’t want to take too many risks after putting a whirlwind stand of 69, with Rohith Sharma. The left hander slammed 11 boundaries, including two sixes.
Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto won the toss and elected to bat on a surface that promised for more runs. Mohammed Shami had some other ideas to bring down Bangladesh to 26 for three. Axar Patel claimed two wickets in two balls before Rohith Sharma created the most horrible moment of the day.
At 39 for 5, Rohith Sharma dropped a sitter at first slip as Axar Patel missed the hat-trick.
Patel had accounted for Tanzid Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim in consecutive balls and his next ball took a thick edge of Jaker Ali’s blade before flying towards Rohith Sharma at first slip. Sharma was too enthusiastic to grab the catch but dropped it. He quickly slapped the ground in disgust and apologized to Axar. Jaker Ali got the life even before scoring.
43 runs later, Towhid Hridoy got a life and again it was the over enthusiasm of Hardik Pandya who dropped another sitter at mid off. Hridoy drove powerfully and Pandya thought it was his bunny but the ball bounced off his palm while the batsman ran for his 24th run. Thus the Bangladeshis got off the hook and marched towards 200 runs mark.
Neither of two batters didn’t look back since then.
However, both Hridoy and Ali were very careful on their shot selection and didn’t take too many risks until the 40th over. From there onwards, Hridoy and Jaker Ali lifted the tempo to score 63 runs in the last 10 overs.
In comparison to where they were, Bangladesh raised their heads by the end of the innings but it was not close enough to challenge one of the world’s most powerful batting line up.
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