World T-20: India post another comfortable victory and inch closer to semifinals

For the third successive match, the spinners put up a great show to take India closer to the semifinal berth. Their impressive show on Friday night also showed that their commendable performances in the previous two outings were no fluke.

Led by the in-form leg-spinner Amit Mishra (3/26) and man of the match R Ashwin (2/15), the bowlers laid a perfect and easier platform for their batsmen to achieve their third straight easy win, by eight wickets, after restricting Bangladesh to a meagre 138/7 at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium.

Riding on fine knocks by Rohit Sharma (56) and Virat Kohli (57*), India romped home comfortably with nine deliveries remaining.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (22, 12b, 1x4, 2x6), who surprisingly came ahead of Yuvraj Singh when India needed 25 to win, smacked Ziaur Rahman for a straight six to seal the game. With this win, India top Group 2 with six points. Bangladesh, on the other hand, along with Australia are virtually out of the tournament.

In the entire game, it was the spinners' brilliant bowling that stole the show. India have not bowled second in the tournament so far as Dhoni once again chose to bowl, knowing that it will be difficult for the bowlers in the second innings because of the dew factor.

Seamers, who had a decent outing in the match against West Indies, were not up to the mark this time. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was whacked by Tamim Iqbal and Anamul Haque for three boundaries in his first over, leaving the Indian fans stunned and the home supporters cheering.

However, off-spinner Ashwin, opening the attack with Kumar, did not let the Bangladesh openers have it easy and maintained pressure by keeping a tight line. In his second over, Ashwin claimed back-to-back wickets of Iqbal (6) and Shamsur Rahman (0).

Iqbal, dropped earlier on by Shikhar Dhawan off Md Shami, edged an away-going delivery off Ashwin to first slip fielder Suresh Raina, who dived to take a superb catch. Rahman unnecessarily went aerial only to find Sharma at the deep mid-wicket underneath it.

Indian bowlers' dominance, it was poor batting by Bangladesh that had the visitors on top of the situation.

Mishra, who surprisingly was given the ball after 10 overs and Suresh Raina, came up with another fine bowling performance and triggered Bangladesh's collapse. Mishra got the scalps of in-form Anamul Haque, Nasir Hossain and Ziaur Rahman.

He castled Haque's stumps as the batsman failed to read his googly while Hossain stepped out only to miss an away-going delivery that saw Dhoni uproot the stumps. Rahman, who went for a big shot, scooped Mishra into the hands of Jadeja at long off.

Meanwhile, Ravindra Jadeja, who got his full quota of overs, looked ordinary conceding runs at 7.50 an over without any success.

r_taus@dniandia.net