The visiting Bangladesh A side kicked off their tour of India on a bitter note as they slumped to a 96-run defeat to their neighbouring counterpart, which was worsened with the injury worry of Tigers paceman Taskin Ahmed. With the win, India A took a commanding 1-0 lead in the three-match unofficial one-day international series yesterday.
Despite a dominating start from the Bangladeshis at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, who reduced India A to 125/5 halfway through their innings, the home side rode on late surges from Sanju Samson, Gurkeerat Singh and Rishi Dhawan and ended up with a mammoth 322 for seven in 50 overs.
The wickets seemed to dry up as the day progressed and a good chase was in order, but the visitors failed largely due to their over-attacking mentality; something that is held as a reason behind the national team’s success.
Openers Rony Talukder struck three fours during his 13-run knock while Soumya Sarker hit two fours in his nine-run knock while Anamul Haque returned for a golden duck inside six overs as India A secured the driving seat in the game.
Mominul Haque (19) and Sabbir Rahman (25) were medium-pacer Dhawan’s two victims on the day as Bangladesh A were reeling at 87 for five before Liton Kumar Das and Nasir Hossain revived the innings with a 120-run partnership.
Gurkeerat, who played a vital hand scoring a 58-ball 65 coming in at No 7 for India A, bagged five wickets which started with the dismissal of Nasir. Nasir scored 52 off 71 balls with the help of two sixes and equal fours.
Gurkeerat then cleaned up Liton, who played a run-a-ball 75 with the help of eight fours and two sixes, before sweeping the Tigers’ tail in 42.3 overs for 226 runs. The right-arm seamer finished with 5-29.
Earlier, Taskin and Shafiul Islam gave the visitors, who won the toss and chose to bowl, a decent start. Nasir later struck twice to dismiss Mayank Agarwal (56) and Suresh Raina (19) as India A were in all sorts of trouble before Gurkeerat joined Samson (73) for a 100-run sixth wicket stand.
Coming in at No 8, Dhawan’s willow produced a blistering 34-ball unbeaten 56 which gave India the big finish to their innings.
