India needed big wins in their first two matches of the Super Eights stage to make sure that even a defeat against Australia in the third didn’t become an impediment to reach the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup. After trouncing Afghanistan in the first, they enacted an encore against Bangladesh. Their last match, in all likelihood, will determine who tops this group.
Hardik Pandya shone with the bat and played a responsible knock. Shivam Dubey played his part during a stage when India needed a partnership. Kuldeep Yadav hoodwinked the Bangladesh batters and so did Jasprit Bumrah. Yet, the highlight of this 50-run demolition of the neighbours was team work. There was no one person due the larger share of the credit. They shared the spoils together.
How often does one see a total of 196 where the highest score is 50? And Pandya (50 not out from 27 balls) just about got to that mark off the last ball of the innings. There were contributions from everyone except for Suryakumar Yadav, who made six after half-centuries in the last two outings. The twenties and thirties made by the others were not towering efforts. But scored at a fast clip and put together, those were the pillars of India’s above-par total on a pitch not the best for batting.
The bowling effort was similar. Kuldeep stood out for figures of 4-0-19-3. The rest made his task easier either by taking the odd wicket here and there or bowling economically. The fate of the match was sealed by the 10-over mark, with Bangladesh at 67/2 in their pursuit of 197. Almost all the bowlers made their presence felt, which gave the opposition no chance, at any stage of their chase.
There were several positives for the Men in Blue, from this win against the team which had knocked them out of the 50-over World Cup in 2007 played in the same Caribbean islands. For the first time in this competition, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli gave the team a strong start. Rishabh Pant tormented the bowlers and Dube proved his worth with a timely knock under pressure. All of them would prefer bigger scores, but the collective output was what mattered on this day in Antigua.
Last but not the least, Bumrah showed yet again why he will be India’s biggest trump card going ahead. The ball came at the batters from unpredictable angles and did things after pitching not seen when other bowlers were in operation. Figures of 4-0-13-2 are unreal in T20s and Bumrah is doing it match after match. That, and the batters getting their act right, are good signs for a team trying to prove a point.
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