India vs Bangladesh Highlights
India chased down a difficult total of 229 on a slow Dubai ground, defeating Bangladesh by six wickets in a fierce Group A ICC Champions Trophy match. Shubman Gill spearheaded India’s chase with a calm and well-made century, so showcasing grit, technique, and resilience. Claiming his sixth ODI five-wicket haul, Mohammed Shami also gave an amazing ball performance.
Date: February 20, 2025
Venue: Dubai International Cricket Stadium (DICS)
Match: 2nd Match, Group A, ICC Champions Trophy 2025
Final Score:
- Bangladesh: 228 all out (Towhid Hridoy 100, Jaker Ali 68, Mohammed Shami 5-53)
- India: 231/4 in 46.3 overs (Shubman Gill 101*, KL Rahul 41*)
Result: India won by 6 wickets with 21 balls remaining.
Player of the Match: Shubman Gill (101* off 129 balls)
Digging deep for his slowest ODI hundred and India’s slowest in the previous six years, Shubman Gill saw India through a challenging chase of 229 that must have brought back memories of their 3-0 series loss to Sri Lanka on similarly sluggish wickets. India’s objective was maintained by Mohammed Shami, who grabbed his sixth ODI five-for and became the fastest man to 200 ODI wickets in terms of balls bowled to reach there, despite a brisk 69-run opening stand.
Both sides will lament lost chances in their Champions Trophy opening. Bangladesh got off to such a bad start that they needed three dropped catches and a spectacular battling hundred from Towhid Hridoy to stay in the race, but they won a vital toss on a tired field with no dew predicted to make chasing easier.
Axar Patel was on a hat-trick, India had Bangladesh down at 35 for 5, and Rohit Sharma lost a sitter followed by two lives for the record-breaking sixth-wicket stand. It let Bangladesh reach a target that denied India a net-run-rate advantage, which might prove vital should they lose one of their three games.
India will still give this top importance. Should they have won the toss, a banana peel survived having misjudged the conditions and decided to field first. Early wickets for the quicks came from some indiscriminate hitting on a slow pitch without help. Bangladesh kept losing wickets so they might have decided the new ball was the ideal moment to bat: they did not wait for a poor ball on offer. The first three went for aggressive shots to conventional good-length bowling with minimal seam.
When Axar entered the ninth over, Bangladesh was 35 for three. Playing him for the turn, Tanzid Hasan—the lone batter who had seemed at ease—paid the final cost with an outside edge. Arguably batting too late at No. 6 particularly in the absence of the injured Mahmudullah, Mushfiqur Rahim played the original line and was done in by the unusual one that turned. Axar slowed the hat-trick ball even more; Jaker Ali responded with an edge that Rohit spilled.
Shortly later, Hardik Pandya dropped Hridoy on the opening over of Kuldeep Yadav. More than ten overs went without a boundary, scoring runs remained a chore on the slow pitch; India also traversed the middle overs without a single wicket for the first time since the 2023 World Cup final. On 24 Jaker did offer a chance, but KL Rahul missed the stumping off Ravindra Jadeja this time.
The two discovered their touch farther into the innings, although Hridoy was impeded by cramps all over his body. Shami went back to bowling with a short leg-side boundary but used the slower ball wide outside off to not only deny them boundaries but also gather three more wickets. Bangladesh’s fight against debilitating cramps, with a cameo from Rishad Hossain and Hridoy, brought them to a battling total.
As India ran away from the three Bangladesh quicks, Rohit kept his high-intention starts of recent times and Gill matched him shot for shot. Rohit fell for 41 off 36 just before the field was due to open in an attempt to make one last advantage of the field restrictions. Right away, scoring started to seem like work. This one with the letters of Rashid scrambled to Rishad, even the master accumulator Virat Kohli battled to control the ball into holes before falling to a legspinner once more.
Shreyas Iyer spent some time playing the conditions, but he overreached and floated a slower ball to mid-off to be dismissed for 15 off 17 after getting a couple and a boundary off Mustafizur Rahman. Promoted for both interrupting the right-hand batter sequence and monitoring the net run rate, Axar skied a slog-sweep and missed reading the Rishad topspinner.
The last three wickets had taken 20.2 overs and dropped 75 runs. Though he tried an unusual hoick early on only to be dropped by Jaker, whom he had personally reprieved earlier in the day, you would have thought the sight of KL Rahul would have brought peace to the proceedings. That turned out to be Bangladesh’s last chance even as India conquered the ghosts of the abortive campaigns in Sri Lanka last year.
Gill, who anchored the hunt and made sure he was there at the finish, was the man to thank. When Rohit left, he was 26 off 23; but, when the circumstances changed he tightened his game and made only calculated risks. Only when the skiddy quick bowler Tanzim Hasan returned did his next boundary arrive. at the 32nd over. By then had raised his slowest half-century.
Gill was happy with singles off the spinners and even Mustafizur, who uses these conditions by bowling a vicious slower ball. After Rohit’s demise, he scored barely thirty off the 52 balls before entering middle gears and ending it well. He needed 12 out of the 19 runs to bring up a hundred, and strike a six and a four off Tanzim to reach the mark off 125 balls and take his usual bow. Rahul brought India home with a six off Tanzim with twenty-one balls left.
