India smashes Bangladesh to book CT 2017 finals against Pakistan

Birmingham: A rampant India crushed downtrodden Bangladesh in the second semifinal of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 by nine wickets at the Edgbaston ground here on Thursday. Now India will meet arch-rivals Pakistan in the final of the Mini World Cup at The Oval ground on June 18.

Rohit Sharma completed 11^th ton of his career and remained not out at 123 runs off 129 deliveries, and decorated his knock with 15 fours and a six. He also received the man of the match award for his match-winning hundred. He was well accompanied by his skipper Virat Kohli, as the duo partnered the crease in an unbeaten 178-run partnership.

Kohli also smashed unbeaten 96 runs off 78 balls with the help of 13 boundaries. En-route to his dominating inning, he also became the quickest batsman across the world to complete 8,000 ODI runs in just 175 innings.

Also read: Virat Kohli becomes fastest to score 8000 runs in ODIs

Opener Shikhar Dhawan, however, missed out on a deserving half-century as he got out after scoring 46 runs off 34 balls hitting 7 fours and a six.

The top trio of India was more than enough for Bangladesh's 265-run target as they achieved it with – balls remaining.

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza was the only wicket-taker for his team as he got the wicket of Dhawan, who was on a rampant mode today.

In the first inning, Bangladesh was put in to bat, and in the very first over, they landed in trouble as Bhuvneshwar Kumar sent Soumya Sarkar back to the pavilion for a duck. It, however, did not stop them from working on the game plan of keeping the scoring rate high.

Tamim Iqbal was the highest scorer for Bangladesh as he scored 70 runs off 82 deliveries with 7 fours and a six, while Mushfiqur Rahim played a 61-run knock off 85 balls with 4 fours. Sabbir Rahman also looked positive during his 19-run inning of 21 balls as he smashed 4 boundaries.

Also read: Dhawan’s record-breaking date with ICC Champions Trophy

Shakib Al Hasan tried his best but could not go beyond 15 runs off 23 balls. Mahmudullah also played well scoring 21 runs off 25 balls. Mosaddek Hossain also scored 15 runs off 26 balls, while Mashrafe Mortaza remained unbeaten and played an important role in raising his team's total to 264/7 in 50 overs with his 25-ball 30-run inning that was laced with 5 boundaries.

Taskin Ahmed scored 10 runs off 14 balls. Interestingly, contrary to its image, India gave away 23 extras during the inning. Bhuvneshwar Kumar gave two early jolts to Bangladesh and ended with the figures of 1/53