India never thought that they will arrive in Bangladesh and go 0-1 down in the first match of the three match series which kicked off on Sunday in Mirpur. The hosts held their nerve and managed to clinch a thriller, beating their big brother neighbour by one wicket to take the lead, riding on all-round performance from spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraj. The match slipped from India’s hands when wicket-keeper KL Rahul dropped his sitter, but it was one in the series of many errors that Men in Blue committed on the field.
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Earlier Washington Sundar had made some rudimentary errors, letting the ball slip out of his grip. Later he had also made no effort as Mehidy’s chance went begging which made skipper Rohit Sharma go furious on him. Earlier when Rahul had dropped the catch, skipper didn’t waste any time screaming his lung out at one of his senior players. Bangladesh needed more than 50 runs at one stage with their nine wickets down, but poor fielding ensured the hosts were let off the hook.
WATCH:
Coming back into the match, Bangladesh’s last wicket pair of Mehidy Hasan Miraj and Mustafizur Rahaman pulled off an absolute heist with a thrilling 51-run stand as India choked during final half an hour to lose a low-scoring opening ODI by one wicket Sunday.
While India produced yet another poor batting show which saw them get all-out for 186 in 41.2 overs, the bowlers did a splendid job to reduce Bangladesh to 136 for 9 in the 40th over. However KL Rahul, who was entrusted with keeping duties to fit him and another veteran Shikhar Dhawan in the same XI, dropped an aerial sitter when Bangladesh still needed 32 runs.
Washington Sundar also didn’t go for an easy catch at third man earning the wrath of skipper Rohit Sharma as Miraj (38 not out off 39 balls) along with Mustafizur (10 not out) got the team past the finishing line in exactly 46 overs.
The 51-run stand between Miraj and Mustafizur was Bangladesh’s highest 10th wicket partnership and the fourth-highest 10th wicket partnership in a successful ODI chase. On a track that assisted both seamers and spinners, Indian top-order barring KL Rahul (73 off 70 balls) flopped badly to be bowled out for a score below 200.
But the total that looked eminently gettable at the break turned into a sizeable one due to lion-hearted efforts from Mohammed Siraj (3/32), Shardul Thakur (1/21) and Washington Sundar (2/17).
Debutant Kuldeep Sen’s (2/37) pace was used to hit him for three sixes — two of them during the slog overs while Deepak Chahar (1/32) despite providing a first-ball breakthrough looked pedestrian towards the end when there was no nip in the air.
In the end, Miraj ensured that hosts didn’t suffer a setback in a game which should have been won with their bowling effort alone.
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