KL Rahul’s stylish hundred at No 4 and a throwback to Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s days of yore were the big gains for India in their emphatic 95-run win over Bangladesh in the second World Cup warm-up game here Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rahul (108 off 99 balls) took the attack back to the opposition after early dismissals while Dhoni’s free-spirited approach also got him a century (113 off 78 balls) as their 164-run stand powered India to 359 for 7 against a Bangladesh attack that went off the boil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If Rahul and Dhoni were the biggest positives to have emerged from batting, Kuldeep Yadav (3\/47 in 10 overs) and Yuzvendra Chahal (3\/55 in 10 overs) also gained in much-needed confidence going into the tournament proper.
\nIt was a walk in the park for India, whose pacers Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled only 14 out of the 49.3 overs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bangladesh batsmen barring Liton Das (73) and Mushfiqur Rahim (90), who added 120 runs for the third wicket, were never in charge. They were all-out for 264 in 49.3 overs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For skipper Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri, the biggest satisfaction has to be Rahul’s performance at No 4. His technique was perfect and the risk-free attacking batting as per Shastri’s lingo was “just what the doctor ordered”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what could make Rahul’s case even stronger is the fact that Vijay Shankar had a forgettable game in both departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rahul looked solid from the beginning and found the gaps with ease, hitting 12 boundaries and four sixes. Dhoni’s innings had eight boundaries and as many as seven sixes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the composed Dhoni dealing with the singles and the occasional boundary, Rahul was in his flowing self during his stay at the crease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rahul and Dhoni had contrasting approaches in their batting, which yielded favourable results for the title contenders. Dhoni used the platform created by Rahul to launch a brutal assault in the final overs to take the score past 350.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Shikhar Dhawan was back in the hut after being adjudged plumb in-front by Mustafizur Rahaman, Rohit Sharma struggled for the better part of his stay, even as skipper Kohli looked solid at the other end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, after the first 25 balls in which Dhoni scored 24, he suddenly changed gears, attacking young off-spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraj and Bangladesh were left ducking for cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rahul started with a cut off Abu Jayed followed by an off-drive. Jayed repeatedly provided him width and he beat the off-side cordon with ease.When Shakib bowled short, he was dispatched over the mid-wicket fence for a maximum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rusty Shakib was taken to the task by both Rahul and Dhoni, who got easy runs off the world’s No. 1 ranked all-rounder. Rahul hit Mustafizur (1\/43 in 8 overs) for two sixes over square leg before being dismissed by Sabbir Rahaman’s part-time spin in the 44th over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KL Rahul’s stylish hundred at No 4 and a throwback to Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s days of yore were the big gains for India in their emphatic 95-run win over Bangladesh in the second World Cup warm-up game here Tuesday. Rahul (108 off 99 balls) took the attack back to the opposition after early dismissals while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62403,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62401\/revisions\/62403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}