India vs Bangladesh Third T20I
Brief scores:
India 174 for 5 in 20 overs (Iyer 62, Rahul 52, Sarkar 2-29) beat Bangladesh 144 in 19.2 overs (Naim 81, Chahar 6-7, Dube 3-30) by 30 runs.
Player of the match: Deepak Chahar
Player of the series: Deepak Chahar
Shreyas Iyer scored a crucial 62 off 33 followed by Deepak Chahar’s record-breaking figures of six for seven, which includes a hat-trick, sealed the three-match T20I series against Bangladesh in India’s favour at the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) Stadium in Nagpur on Sunday (November 10). After losing an important toss, Rohit and Co. battled dew and Mohammad Naim’s heroics with the bat to defend 175 by a comfortable margin of 30 runs in the series decider.
However, the match was far closer than the end result suggests. Chasing 175 to win a historic series, Bangladesh fumbled early by losing the wickets of Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar. From 12 for 2, it was two youngsters – Naim and Mithun who took control of the situation. They first steadied the ship and then flourished with some breathtaking shots all around the ground.
Naim took on the bowlers smartly and attacked the likes of Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal and Dube while Mithun played the second fiddle. The dew added onto Rohit and Co.’s woes. It was hard to grip the ball for the spinners. Also, fielders’ attitude didn’t impress the skipper and he gave them a hearing in between overs.
Bangladesh were 110 for in the 13th over and the equations were favouring them. However, against the run of play, Chahar came back into the attack and removed Mithun in the 13th over. And the floodgates were open.
Soon Shivam Dube, who was supposed to be India’s weak link in the bowling attack, got three crucial breakthroughs in quick successions which turned the game around in India’s favour. Later Chahar polished off the lower-order in style with the record-breaking spell. Eventually, Bangladesh were bowled out for 144 to surrender yet another series-decider against India.
In the first half, put into bat, the stand-in skipper of India went back early as Shafiul Islam castled him with a seam-up delivery that came in a bit. Shikhar Dhawan’s aggressive mode did not last long as well as the left-hander could only make 19.
Meanwhile, KL Rahul and Iyer triggered India’s recovery with a sedate 59-run stand for the third wicket. Both counter-attacked and kept in scoreboard moving at a fair pace. Towards the end, Manish Pandey led the charge in the final overs with a vital cameo of 13-ball 22, which helped India to post a competitive total on the board.
The caravan of the tour will now move to Indore where these two teams will take on each other in the red-ball format from November 14.