Brave Dhoni puts Tigers to sword

Brave Dhoni puts Tigers to sword
First one-day international, Dhaka: India 253-5 bt Bangladesh 250-7 by five wickets
Scorecard

Mahendra Dhoni
Dhoni showed all his battling abilities in a crucial knock for India

Mahendra Dhoni braved a thigh injury to fire an unbeaten 93 and lead India to a five-wicket win in the first match of their one-day series agaist Bangladesh.

The wicket-keeper came to the crease with India on 35-1 and they slipped to 112-4 chasing 251 to win.

But Dhoni's fine rearguard action with Dinesh Karthik (58no) led them past the target with six balls to spare.

Earlier, Javed Omar's 80 had helped the Tigers to 250-7 in a match reduced to 47 overs per side because of rain.

India went into the game with a much-changed line-up in Dhaka, with Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Mongia and Ramesh Powar all included, while Bangladesh called up Shahadat Hossain to replace injured paceman Mashrafe Mortaza.

The home side won the toss and chose to bat, and were given a flying start by Tamim Iqbal, who showed little respect to Zaheer Khan, who conceded 33 from five overs with the new ball.

But the introduction of spin brought about the breakthrough with Dinesh Mongia deceiving Tamim (45) in the flight, resulting in a lofted drive straight to Virender Sehwag at long-on.

India struck again in the next over when Bangladesh skipper Habibul Bashar was caught at mid-on off Powar and departed for a second-ball duck.

Javed Omar batting against India
Omar hits out as Mahendra Dhoni waits in vain for a nick

The double setback had no effect on Omar, however, and he brought up his 10th one-day half century off 84 balls as he and Saqibal Hasan kept the scoreboard ticking over as they added 107 for the third wicket.

Khan returned to redeem his earlier efforts, though, running out Omar with a direct hit as he attempted a second run to long-off, and Hasan was then stumped off Mongia immediately after reaching his fifty, which included only two boundaries.

Mongia (3-49) also bowled Mohammad Ashraful after a cameo of 29 off 22 balls but Mohammad Rafique's 11 off seven balls took Bangladesh to 250 and a decent total.

And India's reply got off to a poor start, Gambhir falling lbw playing across the line to Syed Rasel to fall for just 21.

His was the first of several soft wickets to fall for India, Sehwag driving loosely to cover, Yuvraj Singh chipping to Abdur Razzak well-placed at short cover, Rahul Dravid cutting wildly to point and Mongia flicking to midwicket.

However, as his team-mates fell around him, Dhoni kept his head during an uncharacteristically subdued innings.

His effort was made all the harder when he pulled up taking a sharp single in the 25th over, but he continued with Yuvraj as his runner to manipulate the field well as he reached his 50 off 67 balls, featuring just five fours.

Kartik played his part as well though, making the most of a life after Razzak failed to run him out well short of his ground when he spilled the ball with Kartik lying prostrate in the middle of the pitch.

He went on to reach his 50 off 57 balls as he and Dhoni shared a 109-run partnership to see India home and go some way to avenging their World Cup defeat to the Tigers.

Bangladesh: H Bashar (capt), J Omar, T Iqbal, A Ahmed, S Hasan, M Ashraful, M Rahim, M Rafique, A Razzak, S Hossain, S Rasel.

India: R Dravid (capt), V Sehwag, G Gambhir, D Karthik, Y Singh, M Dhoni, D Mongia, R Powar, Z Khan, M Patel, S Sreesanth.

Well it looks like Dhoni saves the day for India. Could u imagine if India lost 2day, they would have been salughtered at home.

Good thing they won