‘Abhi’ shakes Bangladesh as India book Asia Cup final berth

Abhishek Sharma smacked a blistering fifty and Kuldeep Yadav took three wickets as a dominant India routed a stuttering Bangladesh by a staggering 41 runs in their Asia Cup Super Four match.

After posting a fighting total of 168/6, India bundled out Bangladesh for 127. With the victory, India also booked their berth in the final. They will play a dead rubber against Sri Lanka on Friday.

Chasing, Bangladesh were never in the contention. They got off to a terrible start, losing opener Tanzid Hasan with just four runs on the board.

 Saif Hassan, the hero of the last match against Sri Lanka, smashed a fighting fifty but in vain. Saif and Parvez Hasan Emon added 42 runs for the second wicket to keep the chase alive for a while.

Kuldeep Yadav broke the partnership by dismissing Parvez. After his dismissal, Bangladesh lost wickets in quick succession as they could not get the partnerships going.

Indian bowlers ripped through their fragile middle-order. Nine batsmen could not reach the two-digit mark. Kuldeep was wrecker-in-chief as he picked up three scalps to remain the leading wicket-taker of the tournament.

He accounted for the dismissals of Emon, Rishad Hassan and Tanzim Hasan Sakib. Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy took two each.

Of the total runs scored by Bangladesh, more than half came off Saif’s bat. He was waging the lone battle in a futile chase.

Both Pakistan and Bangladesh have two points each and whoever wins Thursday's match will face India in the final on Sunday.

Earlier, India started off slowly as they scored only 16 runs in the first three overs. Bangladesh bowlers did well as they kept Indian batsmen Abhishek Sharma and Shubman Gill quiet for quite a while.

 Both the batsmen also rode the luck as both Gill and Abhishek got a few reprieves. Abhishek, when batting on seven, was dropped by stand-in skipper Jaker off Tanzim Hasan Sakib.

He chased an outgoing delivery and got a thick edge. Jaker jumped to his left and got a bit of gloves on it but failed to get hold of it.

This proved to be the costliest drop of the tournament as Abhishek capitalised on the reprieve and went on to add another 68 runs to his personal score. He also shared a tone-setting partnership of 77 runs with Gill for the first wicket.

In the fourth over of Nasum, Gill changed his gears and collected 21 runs off it. He began the over with a boundary and hit a six off the next ball. He took a couple and finished the over with another six.

Mustafizur was brought into the attack to check the flow of runs. But Abhishek also changed his colours and welcomed the Bangladeshi pacer with a six. Abhishek also played a couple of lofted shots.

He was lucky as the ball did not carry to the boundary ropes, but at the same time it also landed in no man’s land.

Because of the slow outfield it was difficult to get boundaries and the only way to score quickly was to take aerial routes. So did the Indian batsmen, they adapted to the conditions and played lofted shots taking the advantage of power play when only two fielders are outside the circle.

Both the batsmen launched a carnage. They tore away the Bangladeshi attack and treated both pacers and spinners in the same way.

At the end of the power play India reached 72/0 and from 18/0 in the first three overs, plundering 54 runs in the next three overs.

They not only kept the Bangladeshi bowlers at bay but also toyed with their bowling attack, hitting them all over the ground at their will.

Gill was the first man to go as Nishad flighted a delivery to lure Gill, who failed to get to the pitch of the ball and played an aerial shot.

He could not clear the ropes this time around and Tanzim took a clean catch to get rid of Gill. The dismissal of Gill brought some respite to the Bangladeshi camp as they heaved a sigh of relief.

Abhishek sprinted to his second half-century of the tournament with a single in just 25 balls. After the departure of Gill, India kept on losing the wickets at regular intervals.

Bangladeshi bowlers, led by Rishad Hossain, did well to pull it back as at one stage India looked set to breach the 200-run mark.

Dube was promoted in the batting order as he came to bat at number three. Usually, Dube bats at number six or seven. The move to send Dube up the order seemed to be promoted by the thought of giving some match practice to the lower order.

Due to a very strong batting line-up, seldom lower-order batsmen of India get a chance to showcase their talent and bat in a real-time match not on nets.

India batted for a combined 20 overs in the first two matches put together. However, Dube could not capitalise the opportunity. He holed out to Hridoy as Rishad picked up his second scalp of the day.

Captain Suryakumar Yadav flopped in the second consecutive match as he was taken by his Bangladeshi counterpart off Mustafizur.

Though Suryakumar added 29 runs for the third wicket with Abhishek but his contribution was that of only five runs as the bulk of scoring was done by the swashbuckling opener.

He carried on the carnage from one end despite the wickets kept on falling at the other.

Abhishek was in devastating form and looked set for a century. But his innings came to an abrupt halt as a mixed-up with his captain led to his dismissal.

Five balls later, Suryakumar was also sent back as India lost the fourth wicket to be reduced to 114/4. A late blitz by Hardik Pandya lifted India to 168/6. Pandya smashed a 29-ball 38.