Friday, June 13, 2008

Gambhir’s century helps India record easy 7-wkt win over BanglaDesh

Opener Gautam Gambhir’s fine hundred helped India to register an easy seven-wicket victory against Bangladesh with 14.5 overs left in the last league match of the Tri-nation series here Thursday at the Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur.

Now, India with two wins and Pakistan with one will play the final on Saturday as Bangladesh, losing both their matches is out of the triangular series.

Gambhir remained not out on 107, his fifth century in One-day International cricket, and he faced 101 balls hitting 13 fours and one six.

His opening partner Virender Sehwag also playd a brilliant innings of 59 off just 32 balls with seven fours and two sixes.

Both made 59 for the opening wicket partnership. Later, Gambir was involved in 56-run second wicket stand with Rohit Sharma and 75-run third wicket partnership with Yuvraj Singh.

Earlier, a solid knock of 89 from Raqibul Hasan guided Bangladesh to reach 222 in 49.5 overs.

Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful won the toss and decided to bat but both his openers were dismissed for a mere 17 runs.

However, Ashraful and Raqibul took their team to recovery and added 76 valuable runs for the third wicket stand when Ashraful got out on 36.

Later, Raqibul found another good partner in Alok Kapali, who scored 24 off 27 balls. Both made 46 runs for the fifth wicket partnership.

Kapali’s contribution was 20 and later Mahmudullah scored 24. Mashrafe Mortaza hit a 12-ball 13 and struck the only six of the innings.

From India, RP Singh captured three wickets for 46 while Irfan Pathan claimed two for 48. His brother Yousuf Pathan, Praveen Kumar and Pyush Chawla got one wicket each.

India made one change from the squad that beat Pakistan by 140 runs in their first match of the tournament on Tuesday, with pace bowler RP Singh replacing Ishant Sharma.

Bangladesh also made one change from the team which was defeated by Pakistan by 70 runs in the opening match of the tournament on Sunday, with pace bowler Farhad Reza replacing Shahadat Hossain.

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