da mrbet： Despite a quick 69-run opening stand, India were tested by the 229 target
da betobet： Sidharth Monga20-Feb-20254:30
Manjrekar: There’s an air of dominance around Gill
Shubman Gill dug deep for his slowest ODI hundred and India’s slowest in the last six years to see India through a tricky chase of 229 that must have brought back memories of their 2-0 series defeat to Sri Lanka last August on similarly slow tracks. Despite a quick 69-run opening stand, India were tested by a target that was kept to 229 in the main by Mohammed Shami, who took his sixth ODI five-for and became the quickest man to 200 ODI wickets in terms of balls bowled to get there.Both sides will rue missed opportunities in their Champions Trophy opener. Bangladesh won a crucial toss on a tired pitch with no dew expected to make chasing easier, but they got off to such a poor start that they needed three dropped catches and a superlative fighting hundred from Towhid Hridoy to stay in the contest. India had Bangladesh down at 35 for 5, Axar Patel was on a hat-trick, and Rohit Sharma dropped a sitter, and that was followed by two more lives for the record-breaking sixth-wicket pair. It allowed Bangladesh to get to a total that denied India a net-run-rate boost, which can prove crucial if they happen to lose one of their three matches.Related
Mohammed Shami roars back against injury and age
Rohit rues putting down 'easy' catch to deny Axar hat-trick
Shami fastest to 200 ODI wickets; Rohit second fastest to 11,000 ODI runs
India will still consider this a banana peel survived, having misread the conditions and wanted to field first should they have won the toss. On a slow pitch with no assistance for the quicks, they were gifted early wickets through some indiscriminate hitting. Bangladesh possibly felt the new ball was the best time to bat: they didn’t wait for a bad ball on offer and kept losing wickets. The first three fell to ambitious shots to plain good-length bowling with little seam.Bangladesh were 35 for 3 when Axar was introduced in the ninth over. Tanzid Hasan, the only batter who had looked comfortable, played him for the turn and paid the ultimate price with an outside edge. Mushfiqur Rahim, arguably batting too late at No. 6 especially in the absence of the injured Mahmudullah, played the original line, and was done in by the rare one that turned. Axar slowed down the hat-trick ball, Jaker Ali obliged with an edge, which Rohit spilled.Soon Hardik Pandya dropped Hridoy on 23 in Kuldeep Yadav’s first over. Scoring runs was still a task on the sluggish surface, more than ten overs went without a boundary, but also India went through the middle overs without a single wicket for the first time since the 2023 World Cup final. Jaker did provide an opportunity on 24 but this time KL Rahul missed the stumping off Ravindra Jadeja.
The duo found their touch deeper into the innings, but Hridoy was hampered by cramps. Shami returned to the challenging task of bowling with a short leg-side boundary but used the slower ball wide outside off to not just deny them boundaries but also collect three more wickets. A cameo from Rishad Hossain and Hridoy’s fight despite crippling cramps took Bangladesh to a total that proved competitive.Rohit continued his high-intent starts of recent times, and Gill matched him shot for shot as India raced away from the three Bangladesh quicks. Just before the field was about to spread, Rohit fell for 41 off 36 in a bid to make one last use of the field restrictions. Immediately, scoring became laborious. Even the master accumulator Virat Kohli struggled to manipulate the ball into gaps before falling to a legspinner again, this one with the letters scrambled from Rashid to Rishad.Shreyas Iyer played the conditions for a while, but once he got a couple and a boundary off Mustafizur Rahman, he over-reached and lobbed a slower ball to mid-off to be dismissed for 15 off 17. Promoted for the dual task of breaking the sequence of right-hand batters and also have an eye on the net run-rate, Axar skied a slog-sweep, failing to read the Rishad topspinner.Shubman Gill scored his slowest ODI hundred•AFP / Getty Images
The last three wickets had fallen for 75 runs and had taken 20.2 overs. You would have thought the sight of KL Rahul would have brought calm to the proceedings, but he tried an uncharacteristic hoick early on only to be dropped by Jaker, whom he had himself reprieved earlier in the day. That proved to be the last opportunity for Bangladesh even as India overcame the ghosts of the failed chases in Sri Lanka last year.The man to thank was Gill, who anchored the chase and made sure he was there at the end. He was 26 off 23 when Rohit got out, but as the conditions changed, he tightened his game and took only selective risks. His next boundary came only when the skiddy fast bowler Tanzim Hasan came back in the 32nd over. By that time had brought up his slowest half-century.Gill was content with singles off the spinners and even Mustafizur, who bowls a wicked slower ball to make use of these conditions. He scored just 30 off the 52 balls following Rohit’s dismissal, then went into middle gears before finishing it off in glory. He needed 12 out of the 19 runs to bring up a hundred, and hit a six and a four off Tanzim to get to the mark off 125 balls and take his customary bow. Rahul took India home with a six off Tanzim with 21 balls to spare.
