Playing his 100th T20 international, stand-in captain Rohit Sharma single-handedly powered India to a thumping win against Bangladesh by eight wickets in the second match in Rajkot on Thursday. Rohit perfectly blended grace with brutality in his strokeful 85-run knock which came off just 43 balls. He smashed six fours and as many sixes to help India complete the chase with 26 balls to spare. Courtesy the magnificent win, the home team has levelled the three-match rubber against Bangladesh 1-1. The final match of the series will be played in Nagpur on Sunday (November 10). (MATCH HIGHLIGHTS)
Chasing a relatively easy target of 154 runs to win on a batting beauty, Rohit showed the gulf in class between him and the others on the park. He played risk-free cricket and bludgeoned the Bangladesh bowlers to all parts of the ground. Rohit shared a 118-run opening stand with his partner Shikhar Dhawan (31), who looked a little out of sorts. (SCORECARD)
The experienced duo put India in complete control of the chase and simply batted Bangladesh out of the contest. Looked all set to touch the magical three-figure mark, Rohit fell while attempting a heave on Aminul Islam’s shorter one. His replacement Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul completed the winning formalities with 4.3 overs to spare.
Earlier, Indian bowlers led by Yuzvendra Chahal made an impressive comeback to restrict Bangladesh to a sub-par 153 for 6 and then the dew also played its part on a good track where the ball was coming onto the bat.
Put into bat, Bangladesh could not capitalize on a good start as Chahal’s (2/28) double breakthrough in the 13th over pegged the visitors back. A quick-fire 30 off 21 balls by skipper Mahmudullah Riyad helped them cross the 150-mark.
Openers Liton Das (29 off 21 balls) and Mohammad Naim (36 off 31 balls) shared a 60 run opening stand. Naim slammed profligate left-arm pacer Khaleel Ahmed (1/42) for three successive boundaries to start on rousing note.
Seamer Deepak Chahar (1/25) and off-spinner Washington Sundar (1/25) did manage to stem the flow of runs but Khaleel’s poor show continued. Chahal, on his introduction, had almost removed a set Liton, but Rishabh Pant’s schoolboy error behind the stumps gave the batsman lifeline.
The TV replays showed that while whipping the bails off, Pant collected the ball in front of the stumps and hence it was declared no-ball. As per the law, every part of wicket-keeper’s gloves has to be behind the stumps. Das then hammered two successive fours to add insult to injury.
He got another reprieve on 26 after skipper Rohit Sharma dropped him at square-leg following a mix-up with Shivam Dube and Pant. But Pant made up for his mistake and ran Das out, with a direct hit in the eighth over, to break the opening stand.
Das’s wicket slowed the scoring rate and that put Naim under pressure, who then gave a dolly to Shreyas Iyer at deep-mid-wicket off Washington as Bangladesh slumped were 83 for 2 in the 11th over.
And then Yuzvendra picked two wickets in the 13th over -Mushfiqur Rahim (4 off 6 balls), who gave a sitter to Krunal Pandya and then removed a set Soumya Sarkar (30 off 20 balls; 2×4, 1×6) – as Bangladesh were struggling at 103/4. Sarkar was stumped by Pant and they never got the momentum back.