World Cup 2019: Five things we learned about India against Bangladesh
India faced Bangladesh at Edgbaston, Birmingham after losing to England at the same venue just a few days before. It was an important game for Bangladesh, as elimination was likely if they lost.
After winning the toss, India batter first. The Men in Blue played well initially and scored 314/9 in 50 overs which looked like an unsafe total against Bangladesh who already chased a 300+ total successfully against West Indies in this World Cup.
The Bangladeshi Tigers even scored 330 against South Africa, which the Proteas could not chase. All these put India under some pressure, but still, they fought with confidence. The bowlers bowled excellently and bundled the opponents for 286.
With this win, India book their semi-finals spot. The contest against Bangladesh revealed certain things about the 2011 World Cup champions as they move forward in this edition of the tournament.
This article examines team India after their victory against Bangladesh to see how they will proceed tactically from this point.
#1 A Record awaiting to be broken
Rohit Sharma scored a vital century yet again in this World Cup. Initially, Tamim Iqbal dropped his catch in an over of Mustafizur Rahman. If Tamim succeeded, then India’s total would’ve looked low as Rohit was just on nine runs.
The Hitman capitalized on this and made the opponents pay by scoring 104. The likes of Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya, and Dinesh Karthik did not score much in this match so perhaps Bangladesh would have won the match if it wasn’t for that drop catch.
This is the fourth century by Rohit in this World Cup. Only Kumar Sangakkara has hit that many in a single World Cup edition. Ironically, India’s next opponent is Sri Lanka, against whom Rohit has scored two double hundreds.
Also see – India vs Sri Lanka head to head stats