Nidahas Trophy 2018 Final: India vs Bangladesh - Who Said What

The series didn’t deserve a better finish. The Nidahas Trophy 2018 couldn’t have asked for a better finish. Neither the organizers nor the fans. Team India needed 5 runs to win on the last ball and Krishnakumar Dinesh Karthik sliced the ball over extra cover for a six. India won the match by 4 wickets and thus this young Indian team also took the honours of the series with an exciting victory.

It started with Rohit Sharma winning the toss, he chose to bowl first. Shakib Al Hasan’s men had to now post a total on the board big enough to contain the mighty Indian batting. They lost Liton Das early and then Tamim Iqbal on the same score. But it was Sabbir Rahman who was their saviour on the night. He scored a magnificent half century to take the team total to 166/8 in 20 overs.

Team India got off to a positive start with Rohit Sharma spanking the spinners hard. But Shikhar Dhawan couldn’t add more than ten runs, Suresh Raina got out for a duck and they were under pressure. The Sharma-KL Rahul partnership kept them in the hunt but the asking rate was shooting up. Manish Pandey got in but couldn’t score his runs quick.

Trying to do more than he could, Rohit fell for 56 and now Bangladesh were all in the game. When 34 runs were needed off the last two overs it was they who held the advantage but a certain Dinesh Karthik had the night to his name and clobbered everything that came his way and took the team home with a heroic last ball six.

Man of the Match Dinesh Karthik said:

“Really happy to come out of this performance. Really happy for the team. We’ve played really well in this tournament and to not win the final would have been unfortunate. It was not that easy to bat there. The way Musftazur bowled… So I just had to go out there and hit the ball hard. I have been practising keeping a good base and hitting through the line and luckily it came out well. The Indian team is a tough place to get an opportunity, but once you get it, you have to take it. And credit to the backroom staff, they have always supported me and I’m really happy.”

Player of the Series Washington Sundar said:

“It means a lot, especially such an award at such a young age. I really need to thank my family for this. It’s a challenging role (operating in powerplay) but when playing for your country, it’s just an honour. I’ve always wanted to read the batsmen’s mind, and that’s what I have been trying to do. I really wanted to be there when we win the game and I think Dinesh bhai played really well and it turned out to be a memorable series for me. 

Indian captain Rohit Sharma said:

“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 of 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 said:

“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. 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.”