With a sterling knock of 107 runs, Gautam Gambhir steered India to a seven-wicket win over Bangladesh in the third match of the Kitply Cup in Mirpur.
Gambhir slammed his fifth ODI hundred, his second against Bangladesh with the help of twelve fours and one six and guided his side to victory in 35.1 overs. He was aptly adjudged as the 'Man of the Match'.
He looked subdued when he opened the innings with Sehwag and allowed his partner to hog the limelight. Sehwag, carrying on the momentum, slammed 59 runs. He slammed his 27th ODI fifty in just 29 balls and added 85 runs for the first wicket with Gambhir. Dolar Mahmud picked his prized wicket but the 'Delhi Demolisher' had done the damage before his exit.
After Sehwag, Gambhir took charge of the innings and added 56 runs with Rohit Sharma for the second wicket. Rohit made 26 runs and perished playing an unwanted shot to Abdur Razzak. Yuvraj Singh played a short cameo of 26 runs and added 75 runs with Gambhir.
Earlier, India bundled out Bangladesh for 222 runs with a ball to spare but their efforts must have given a lesson or two to Pakistan, who succumbed without any fight to India.
Bangladesh had a couple of mini collapses when they lost two early wickets and then lost three wickets in the death overs. It wasn't a bad bowling by the Indians but a fighting effort by the hosts. Their top-order failed to trigger a good start but Raqibul Hasan made sure he held the innings together. He was unfortunate to miss out on a century as RP Singh got his wicket for 89 runs.
After electing to bat first, Bangladesh got the first blow in the opening over of Praveen Kumar, who struck to dismiss the in-form Tamim Iqbal. Iqbal gave a faint edge to the Dhoni.
RP Singh, who replaced Ishant Sharma, picked the second Bangla wicket in the sixth over and sent Shahriar Nafees back for 9 runs. Raqibul was his second victim while he scalped Mahmudullah (24) as his third victim.
After the fall of Nafees, skipper Mohd Ashraful scored 36 runs and added 76 runs for the third wicket with Raqibul. Dhoni introduced Yusuf Pathan, who picked Mohd Ashraful as his maiden ODI wicket. Piyush Chawla then soon removed Mushfiqur Rahim for 5 runs.
Irfan Pathan, finally, managed to bag his first wicket of the tri-nation series when he dismissed Alok Kapali for 20 runs. Dolar Mahmud was his second kill.
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