COLOMBO: Opener Shikhar Dhawan hit his second successive Twenty20 half-century to help India thrash Bangladesh by six wickets and register their first win in the tri-nation tournament here at the R. Premadasa Stadium.on Thursday.

Chasing 140 for victory, India rode on Dhawan’s 43-ball 55 to achieve their target with eight balls to spare.

India, who won the toss and opted to bowl, gained the upper hand after pacemen Jaydev Unadkat and Vijay Shankar shared five wickets between them to restrict Bangladesh to 139-8.

Dhawan, whose 90 went in vain in India’s opening loss against hosts Sri Lanka on Tuesday, then made sure that his side cruise home, despite initially slumping to 40-2.

Skipper Rohit Sharma faltered in his second successive outing after chopping a delivery onto his stumps from left-arm paceman Mustafizur Rahman. He made 17.

Dhawan, hitting 5 fours and 2 sixes en route to his sixth T20 fifty, and Suresh Raina, who made 28, put on a crucial 68-run third-wicket stand.

Dhawan finally fell to Taskin Ahmed’s right-arm medium pace in the 17th over but Manish Pandey, 27 not out, carried the team home.

Earlier, Bangladesh batting faltered with only Liton Das, who top-scored with 34 and Sabbir Rahman, who hit 30 off 26 balls, giving some respectability to the total.

Unadkat claimed three wickets with his left-arm pace while Shankar, who took his first international wicket in Mushfiqur Rahim, returned figures of 2-32.

Bangladesh will next take on Sri Lanka in the third match of the tournament, which is timed to commemorate the host island’s 70 years of independence, on Saturday.

Scoreboard

BANGLADESH:

Tamim Iqbal c Unadkat b Thakur 15 Soumya Sarkar c Chahal b Unadkat 14 Liton Das c Raina b Chahal 34 Mushfiqur Rahim c Karthik b Shankar 18 Mahmudullah c Thakur b Shankar 1 Sabbir Rahman c Karthik b Unadkat 30 Mehidy Hasan c Pandey b Unadkat 3 Taskin Ahmed not out 8 Rubel Hossain run out 0 Mustafizur Rahman not out 1 EXTRAS (LB-2, W-11, NB-2) 15 TOTAL (for eight wkts, 20 overs) 139 FALL OF WKTS: 1-20, 2-35, 3-66, 4-72, 5-107, 6-117, 7-134, 8-135. DID NOT BAT: Nazmul Islam. BOWLING: Unadkat 4-0-38-3 (4w); Sundar 4-0-23-0 (2w); Thakur 4-0-25-1 (2w); Chahal 4-0-19-1; Shankar 4-0-32-2 (3w, 2nb).

INDIA:

R. Sharma b Mustafizur 17 S. Dhawan c Liton b Taskin 55 R. Pant b Rubel 7 S. Raina c Mehidy b Rubel 28 M. Pandey not out 27 D. Karthik not out 2 EXTRAS (B-1, LB-1, W-2) 4 TOTAL (for four wkts, 18.4 overs) 140 FALL OF WKTS: 1-28, 2-40, 3-108, 4-123. DID NOT BAT: W. Sundar, V. Shankar, S. Thakur, J. Unadkat, Y. Chahal. BOWLING: Mustafizur 4-0-31-1; Taskin 3-0-28-1; Rubel 3.4-0-24-2 (1w); Mehidy 4-0-21-0; Soumya 1-0-8-0 (1w); Mahmudullah 1-0-11-0; Nazmul 2-0-15-0 RESULT: India won by six wickets. MAN-OF-THE-MATCH: Vijay Shankar. UMPIRES: Ranmore Martinesz, Lyndon Hannibal (both Sri Lanka) TV UMPIRE: Raveendra Wimalasiri (Sri Lanka) MATCH REFEREE: Chris Broad (England).

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2018