The Indian team led by Rohit Sharma won Nidahas Trophy in a thrilling encounter against the Bangladeshis and what a win it was! The match got over on the last ball of the Indian innings and it would have been impossible for India to win without Dinesh Karthik’s blistering knock of 29 runs in 8 balls.
The match was played on Sunday at R Premadasa stadium and the Bangladeshis gave a target of 167 runs to the Indians. The target was not very big for the Indian side with their power-packed batting line-up but credit here goes to Bangladeshi bowlers for bowling really well and bringing India at a position to score 34 of just 12 balls.
For almost five overs, team India was not able to hit a boundary. However, things turned when Dinesh Karthik came in middle and scored 22 runs of the 19th over which was bowled by Rubel Hussain.
Bangladeshi skipper Shakib Al Hasan was asked to comment on Karthik’s batting and this is what he had to say,
“It is not an easy thing to do to hit a low full-toss like that. Five of the eight balls he faced went for boundaries. It was amazing hitting. I don’t know many batsmen who can hit a six off the first ball, and then keep hitting the boundaries. There was something otherworldly about it.”
In fact, the match could have gone in Bangladesh’s favour as India needed 5 runs to win on the last ball of the innings but Dinesh destroyed their hopes of victory in the finals by hitting a six of the last ball.
When Shakib was asked why he gave the ball to Rubel for the 19th over, he said,
“When Mustafizur bowled that brilliant (18th) over, India needed 35. Rubel was our best bowler after the way he bowled the first three overs. I believed in him. I thought even if he bowled badly, he would go for 15 runs. I would have 20 runs to play with during the last two overs, which would have given Soumya some cushion.”
Bangladesh batted first and scored 166 runs with the help of Sabbir Rahman’s knock of 77. They would have scored more if they hadn’t lost wickets in regular intervals.
When Shakib was asked whether the target was little less, he said,
“It was a tough period for us when we lost three quick wickets. If we played better, we may have scored more runs. I think overall we were 10-15 runs short but if someone asked me at the start of the game what was my ideal score in a final, I would have said 170 so I think we were 4-5 runs short.”
Despite losing the match so closely, the Bangladeshi skipper is pretty hopeful that his team will get to learn a lot from these close encounters. Earlier in 2016, Bangladesh lost the World Cup T20 match in Bengaluru by one run. Shakib said,
“There are many positives. We are scoring consistently. Some of our bowlers did really well. We fielded really well too. We needed that extra edge, and hopefully we will get better.”
It’s good that Bangladeshi captain is taking positives from a lost match and this will definitely help them in becoming a better team. Well, now it is celebration time for Indians after winning the Nidahas Trophy.