Bangladesh beat India by five wickets

New Delhi: A few hours before the Group B match against India, Bangladesh's coach Dave Whatmore had said that they were capable of causing an upset or two in the tournament.

And his team proved Whatmore right when they caused the first upset of the 2007 World Cup on Saturday at the Queens Park Oval in Port of Spain (Trinidad & Tobago) defeating Team India by five wickets to take two points from the match and left the Men in Blue facing the prospects of an early flight back home.

Bangladesh's disciplined bowling attack backed by their fielders ensured that the famed Indian batting line-up folded for only 191 runs in 49.3 overs and then the batsmen led by the young trio of Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim and Saqibul Hasan decimated the Indian bowling attack to take their team to a well deserved win with nine balls left.

Mashrafe Mortaza, who took four wickets giving away only 38 runs and helped dismiss India for the lowest One-Day total against his team, was named the man of the match.

The win is only the second one for Bangladesh against a Test playing nation in the World Cup. In the 1999 edition they had beaten Pakistan.

Bangladesh began the quest for their first ever win in the World Cup batting second with Tamim Iqbal and Shahriar Nafees and the former was quick off the mark hitting Zaheer Khan for a four in the first over.

Keeping the run rate well over the asking rate, Bangladesh reached 24 by the fifth over before Zaheer trapped Nafees lbw with an incoming ball to which the left-handed batsman had offered no shot.

One would have thought that after the fall of the first wicket the Bangladeshi batsmen would play cautiously but young Tamim gave an amazing display of attacking batting.

Charging down the crease to the Indian pacers at will, the 18-year-old Tamim started belting the ball all over the park. He was particularly severe on Zaheer taking 15 runs in his sixth over that included two fours and a huge six over the long-on boundary.

He had already hit two consecutive fours in the fourth over of the same bowler and slashed a Munaf delivery over the third man for a six. He reached his maiden ODI half-century in only 51 balls with the help of seven fours and two sixes.

However, he failed to add to his 51 runs and his marauding batting came to an end when a Munaf delivery took the edge of his bat and went straight to Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

And Munaf struck once again in his next over to trap Aftab Ahmed lbw to give the Indians a glimpse of hope.

After the fall of three wickets, India still had a chance with Bangladesh needing 152 runs but the fourth wicket partnership between the 18-year-old Rahim and Hasan, which added 84 runs off 136 balls, extinguished any hopes of an Indian win.

They scored at will with Indian skipper Rahul Dravid running out of ideas. While the pacers were shown no respect, the slower bowlers failed to find any chink in the Bangladeshi armour though Harbhajan Singh gave only 30 runs off his 10 over while Virender Sehwag picked up two wickets but by that time the match was almost lost.

Hasan hit a six off Harbhajan Singh to bring up his half-century but perished soon afterwards stumped by Dhoni off Sehwag in the next over.

Then Bangladesh lost skipper Habibal Bashar in the same fashion but Rahim took his team to a memorable victory and remained not out on 56 from 107 balls.

The only thing that went wrong for Bashar was the toss, which he lost and was put in to bat by Dravid.

But after that every thing fell in the right place for them as the Indian batsmen failed to come to terms with a pitch that was not ideal for stroke making. They also helped the Bangladeshi bowlers by poor shot selection and the inability to stay in the middle.

Apart from Sourav Ganguly, who top scored with a 129-ball 66, and Yuvraj Singh (47, 58b 3x4 1x6) none of the top order batsmen showed any application and perished either trying to play their shots too early or misjudging the line and length of the ball.

Even the 191 that India finally put on the board was possible only because the last pair of Zaheer and Munaf Patel wielded the long handle effectively to add 32 runs after they were 159/9 in 45.1 overs.

But the other batsmen failed to apply themselves against an attack that was disciplined and did the basics right.

The take-it-easy attitude was reflected the way Virender Sehwag, who came out to open the innings, batted. Continuing his poor run with the bat, Sehwag was bowled when he played down a Mashrafe Mortaza delivery as he tried to play the cut shot to a ball that was coming in without moving his feet only to see his middle stump getting uprooted.

Robin Uthappa, flying high after his recent run of good scores, was brought down to the earth after playing just only one shot to the boundary and was caught by Aftab Ahmed at point to became Mortaza’s second victim.

With two batsmen out cheaply, Bangladesh bowlers tightened the screws and bowled a teasing line to test both Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar.

The duo, with more that 15, 000 One-Day runs between them, had no answer as Mortaza and Sayed Rasel kept the lid on the scoring rate which was hovering near the three-run per over mark.

After the first drinks break, left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak got the prized wicket of Sachin Tendulkar (seven) as the batsman tried to drive but the incoming ball kissed the inside edge of the bat and wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim juggled the ball before completing the catch.

With the score crawling to 72 at the end of 22 overs, Mohammad Rafique trapped Rahul Dravid (14) lbw off his first ball of the match to put his team firmly in the control.

With the innings in tatters and Bangladeshi bowlers giving no room to play the shots, it was left to Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh to do the repair job. The pressure was mounting and runs had tried up but neither of them threw in the towel.

Ganguly, a veteran of fighting with his back against the wall, took charge and slowly started finding the gaps and the run rate climbed.

However, the going was still tough as the Bangladeshi fielders were prowling like hungry tigers not letting the Indian batsmen take any easy runs.

Run scoring was so difficult that Ganguly, who normally fancies the left-arm spinners, failed to take advantage of the three that Bangladesh had fielded.

The pressure was so much that when Dravid was out the score was 72 in 24.1 over while the 100 of the innings came in 33.1 overs when Yuvraj hit Saqibul Hasan for the four which was the first boundary shot in n14 overs.

After that shot the batsmen opened up a little more and the scoring rate increased. Boundaries started coming in at regular intervals while the singles and twos were also taken without much fuss.

Ganguly brought up his 65th ODI half-century and only the second in the World Cup off 105 balls and Yuvraj took India past 150-run mark with a huge six off Mohammad Rafique and looked all set for many more such shots.

But trouble was lurking round the corner and Razzak came back and took revenge for being hit in his earlier over for two fours by scalping Yuvraj who was caught by Habibul Bashar at short fine leg. He added 85 runs off 11 balls with Ganguly for the fifth wicket.

Four balls later Mohammad Rafiq induced Ganguly to play a pull shot to ball that was short but the Indian batsman failed to connect properly with the ball going straight to midwicket where Razzak took an easy catch.

Then the lower order caved in without a fight with Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh and Ajit Agarkar failing to do much as Bangladesh maintained a tight line and length. India lost five wickets in 16 deliveries adding only two runs to the total before the last pair decided to show their batting skills.

Munaf was the last man out when he tried to hit a slower ball by Mortaza but succeeded in sending it straight to Razzak at cover to bring down the curtain on the Indian innings.

While Mortaza accounted for four Indians, left-arm spinner Rafique and Razzaq took three wickets each.

Sri Lanka lead Group B after drubbing Bermuda by 243 runs in the first match of the group.

Teams:

India: Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid (C), Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni(WK), Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel.

Bangladesh: Shahriar Nafees, Tamim Iqbal, Aftab Ahmed, Habibul Bashar (C), Saqibul Hasan, Mohammad Ashraful, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammad Rafique, Abdur Razzak, Mashrafe Mortaza, Syed Rasel.

Umpires: Aleem Dar (Pakistan) and Steve Davis (Australia). Third umpire: Ian Howell (South Africa). Match referee: Alan Hurst (Australia).

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