Bangladesh came into this Asia Cup 2018 final against favorites India on the back of a brilliant win over Pakistan on Wednesday.
Rohit Sharma won the toss and chose to bowl first and the five players who missed out the Afghanistan encounter were back. Bangladesh innovated with their openers as Mehidy Hasan and Liton Das came out to start the innings and threw caution to the wind.
Liton, in particular, slammed the Indian bowlers to all parts of the ground, as Mehidy anchored one end making 32 in 59 balls. The duo added 120 runs in just 20 odd overs before Mehidy was dismissed by Kedar Jadhav.
But Liton Das continued well to convert his first fifty in ODI cricket into a maiden century in 87 balls with 11 fours and 2 sixes. He finally fell for 121 off 117 balls as Bangladesh started to collapse in between. Imrul Kayes, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohd Mithun, and Mahmudullah all fell for single-digit scores.
Soumya Sarkar kept prodding away as Kuldeep Yadav picked 3/45 and Jadhav (2/41) picked the important wicket of Mushfiqur Rahim as well.
Bangladesh finally finished for 222 runs in the 49th over. Jasprit Bumrah and Yuzvendra Chahal picked a wicket each.
Twitter was well aware of Bangladesh’s fighting spirit and the way they started, they were on course for a score of 280 odd. But the way Rohit Sharma marshaled his troops and brought India back in the game, they had all the love and admiration for the Indian team.
Here are some tweets:
@imjadeja superb as always; but something special when a young player who u have watched “grow up” from raw talent to essential ingredient in #TeamIndia success @Jaspritbumrah93 #willing2learn
— Jonty Rhodes (@JontyRhodes8) September 28, 2018
Great effort by the Indian bowlers to restrict Bangladesh to 222 after they had an opening partnership of 120. Outstanding fielding as well by India as 3 Bangladeshi batsmen were run out. Best wishes to India for the run chase and win the #AsiaCup
— VVS Laxman (@VVSLaxman281) September 28, 2018
Bangladesh have done very well to restrict Bangladesh after the start Bangladesh got #AsiaCup2108 #INDvBAN
— Gaurav Kalra (@gauravkalra75) September 28, 2018
#TeamIndia ‘s ability to take wickets in the middle overs has set them apart from the rest in this #AsiaCup2018 apart from being a cloud nine batting side #INDvsBAN
— subramani badrinath (@s_badrinath) September 28, 2018
Last 25 overs, Bangladesh have made 81-7!!
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) September 28, 2018
So it took a lightening ⚡ stumping from Dhoni to get rid of Litan Das. To be fair nobody apart from him 'Lit' the game on fire with the bat for Bangladesh #AsiaCup2018 #INDvBAN
— Hemang Badani (@hemangkbadani) September 28, 2018
Well begun is half the job done....Only half the job, Bangladesh #IndvBan #AsiaCup
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) September 28, 2018
Well done! India have responded with spinners @JadhavKedar and @yuzi_chahal! Brilliant fielding by @imjadeja! But no one has been able to stop the agile Liton Das! A spectacular 100! ???? #AsiaCupFinal #INDvBAN
— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) September 28, 2018