Incredible Karthik leads India to Nidahas Troppy Title

India survived late drama in a pulsating final to clinch the Twenty20 tri-series after Dinesh Karthik smashed the final ball for a six to secure their thrilling four-wicket victory against a gallant Bangladesh side on Sunday.

With India needing 34 runs off the last two overs, Karthik hammered 29 not out off just eight deliveries, his third six sealing India’s third, and the most hard-earned, victory over Bangladesh in the tournament.

Put into bat, Bangladesh made 166-8, a total they owe largely to number three batsman Sabbir Rahman who made 77 after their top order collapsed.

Chasing 167 to win, India lost openers Shikhar Dhawan and number three Suresh Raina early but skipper Rohit Sharma batted comfortably to score 56 and keep India’s chase on track.

He and KL Rahul (24) found it easy going against the Bangladesh bowlers until Sharma went for a fatal slog-sweep of Nazmul Islam, departing with three sixes and four boundaries to his name.

Mustafizur Rahman then bowled a masterly 18th over, when his first five balls at Vijay Shankar yielded only one run and Manish Pandey (28) perished off the sixth trying to accelerate the contest.

Next man in Karthik exploded immediately, hitting the first ball he faced for a six and plundering 22 runs off that over from Rubel Hossain to turn the match on its head.

Needing 12 runs off the last over from Soumya Sarkar, Shankar fell to the fifth delivery with India still five runs away.

Karthik nonchalantly hit the final ball for a six to trigger wild celebration by a young India team which had rested regular skipper Virat Kohli and stumper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, among others.

Interim captain Sharma had earlier opted to bowl after winning the toss, influenced partly by the fact that chasing teams had won five of the six matches prior to the final.

Bangladesh suffered early jolts and slumped to 68 for four midway through their innings after leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (3-18) struck three blows, dismissing Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar and Mushfiqur Rahim.

Sabbir took the onus on himself to rescue Bangladesh and he got some support from Mahmudulla who made 21.

Even though wickets kept tumbling at the other end, Sabbir brought up his half-century off 37 balls to keep the scoreboard ticking.

Paceman Jaydev Unadkat struck twice in the penultimate over of the Bangladesh innings, dismissing Sabbir and Rubel Hossain.

Mehidy Hasan Miraz made 19 not out off seven balls to help Bangladesh cross the 150-mark

Winning skipper Rohit Sharma: "Brilliant game, brilliant for the crowd who have come out in numbers. The support we got here from this crowd was brilliant, it would be a bit different if we were playing Sri Lanka but I would like to thank them for their show tonight. Great tournament for us. Young lads. Lot of learning. We always knew they had the talent, but it was about executing and this tournament will give them a lot of confidence. Everybody who played, they showed lots of character. These games are not easy and these guys have not played a lot for the national team. And this performance will give them a lot fo confidence. It was quite easy to lead them. A lot of work has been done of the field in terms of strategy so it was very easy for me to remind them what we spoke of in our meeting and I thought they just executed them perfectly, in the Powerplay, middle overs and the death. Some of them went for runs, but they will learn from it and today was a real platform to show what we could do. Very happy to see Dinesh doing what he did, he didn't get much game time until now, but he showed his power. We held him back because of his finishing ability and his experience. And it paid off. I always had a lot of faith in our batting group and we were confident after keeping them to a par score."

Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan:  “You can't ask for more in a final like this. I thought we played superbly, anybody could have won the game, but India held their nerves well. We wanted to bowl our best bowler in the 18th and 19th. But even if Rubel had gone for 15 an over, we could have handled it. He didn't miss his length too much but credit to Dinesh Karthik to just come out and hit sixes from his first ball. We knew 166 would be tough to defend, we had a good feeling though, everyone did their best, gave their 100%. It hurts to lose, but we played well. [Mehidy only one over] It was pre-planned, who we wanted to bowl, but all of our bowlers can bowl. We can still take lots of positives from here and someday we can be on the winning side"

Bangladesh 

 Tamim Iqbal        c Shardul Thakur b Yuzvendra Chahal     15

 Liton Das          c Suresh Raina b Washington Sundar      11

 Sabbir Rahman      b Jaydev Unadkat                        77

 Soumya Sarkar      c Shikhar Dhawan b Yuzvendra Chahal      1

 Mushfiqur Rahim    c Vijay Shankar b Yuzvendra Chahal       9

 Mahmudullah        Run Out Vijay Shankar                   21

 Shakib Al Hasan    Run Out Lokesh Rahul                     7

 Mehedi Hasan       Not Out                                 19

 Rubel Hossain      b Jaydev Unadkat                         0

 Mustafizur Rahman  Not Out                                  0

 Extras             0b 2lb 0nb 0pen 4w                       6

 Total              (20.0 overs)                         166-8

Fall of Wickets : 1-27 Das, 2-27 Iqbal, 3-33 Sarkar, 4-68 Rahim, 5-104 Mahmudullah, 6-133 Al Hasan, 7-147 Rahman, 8-148 Hossain

Did Not Bat : Islam

 Bowling            Ov  Md  Rn  Wk   Econ  Ex

 Jaydev Unadkat      4   0  33   2   8.25  2w

 Washington Sundar   4   0  20   1   5.00

 Yuzvendra Chahal    4   0  18   3   4.50

 Shardul Thakur      4   0  45   0  11.25  1w

 Vijay Shankar       4   0  48   0  12.00  1w

 India  

 Shikhar Dhawan  c (Sub) b Shakib Al Hasan               10

 Rohit Sharma    c Mahmudullah b Nazmul Islam            56

 Suresh Raina    c Mushfiqur Rahim b Rubel Hossain        0

 Lokesh Rahul    c Sabbir Rahman b Rubel Hossain         24

 Manish Pandey   c Sabbir Rahman b Mustafizur Rahman     28

 Vijay Shankar   c Mehedi Hasan b Soumya Sarkar          17

 Dinesh Karthik  Not Out                                 29

 Extras          0b 2lb 0nb 0pen 2w                       4

 Total           (20.0 overs)                         168-6

Fall of Wickets : 1-32 Dhawan, 2-32 Raina, 3-83 Rahul, 4-98 Sharma, 5-133 Pandey, 6-162 Shankar

Did Not Bat : Sundar, Thakur, Chahal, Unadkat

 Bowling            Ov  Md  Rn  Wk   Econ  Ex

 Shakib Al Hasan     4   0  28   1   7.00

 Mehedi Hasan        1   0  17   0  17.00

 Rubel Hossain       4   0  35   2   8.75

 Nazmul Islam        4   0  32   1   8.00  1w

 Mustafizur Rahman   4   1  21   1   5.25

 Soumya Sarkar       3   0  33   1  11.00  1w