Bangladesh humble India

Debutant Mustafizur claims a fifer as hosts register a thumping 79-run win

The high-flying India were brought down to earth by a spirited Bangladesh who pulled off an upset 79- run victory to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match ODI series, here on Thursday.

Bangladesh outsmarted India in all departments of the game and extracted a sweet revenge for their their quarterfinal loss at the hands of the same opponents in the World Cup earlier this year.

Chasing an imposing 308 for win, the Indians made a steady start before losing wickets in a heap to be bundled out for 228 with four overs to spare.

Openers Rohit Sharma (63 off 68) and Shikhar Dhawan (30 off 38) stitched a 95-run stand for the first wicket, while Suresh Raina — with a run-a-ball 40 — and Ravindra Jadeja (32 off 42) also tried their bit to save the day for India, which was not to be.

Debutant Mustafizur Rahman (5/50) turned out to be the star performer for Bangladesh with the ball, picking up a fifer in his first international match. He was supported well by pace partner Taskin Ahmed (2/21) and left-arm spinner Shakib al Hasan (2/33). 

Earlier, Indian bowlers were taken to task by some fantastic batting by Bangladesh top-order as the home team posted a challenging score of 307 all out in 49.4 overs, their highest score against India in ODIs, surpassing the previous best of 296 for six at the same venue in 2010.

Openers Soumya Sarkar (54 off 40 balls) and Tamim Iqbal (60 off 62 balls) added 102 runs for the opening stand in only 13.4 overs to lay a solid foundation.

Shakib (52 off 68 balls), Sabbir Rahaman (41 off 44 balls) and Nasir Hossain (34) batted well in the middle- order to take Bangladesh to a substantial total.

While Ravichandran Ashwin (3/51 in 10 overs) was the most successful bowler for India, Umesh Yadav (2/58 in 8 overs) and Mohit Sharma (1/53 in 4.3 overs) were taken apart by the Bangladeshi batsmen.

Ravindra Jadeja (1/48) was good in patches and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2/37 in 7 overs) ended with a decent outing. It was bound to be a tough chase for the Indians and it turned out to be so.

India’s opening duo of Rohit and Dhawan were off to a shaky start as Bangladesh’s pace combination of Must­afizur and Taskin bowled a probing line and length.

The duo’s disciplined bowling initially didn’t allow the Indian openers to free their arms as the visitors made just 17 runs off the first four overs.

But after the initial jitters, the openers finally opened up when Dhawan dished out a fine cover drive off Taskin to strike the first boundary of the visitors’ innings in the last ball off the fourth over.

Bangladesh’s Test captain and wicket-keeper Mushfiqur Rahim handed two lives to Dhawan in consecutive overs.

Mushfiqur first dropped Dhawan at the personal score of 13 when Rubel Hossain induced a sharp outside edge in the ninth over and then an over later the home team wicket-keeper again spilled an inside edge off the left-hander off skipper Mortaza’s bowling.

Helped by the two dropped chances, India reached 66 for no loss at the end of the 10th over. 

Bangladesh tasted success in the last ball of the 16th over in the form of Dhawan, whose luck finally ran out when he top-edged a Taskin delivery to Mushfiqur behind the stumps while going for an upper cut.