It was a brilliant performance by a certain Dinesh Karthik which helped India seal the Nidahas Trophy by beating Bangladesh by four wickets in the final delivery of the match. A day after India lifted the trophy with a nail-biting victory, BCCI acting President CK Khanna on Monday urged the men in Blue to continue their dominant run even in their next assignment in England. They begin with a three-match T20I series followed by as many ODI’s and 5 Tests. Meanwhile, the Nidahas Trophy was a tri-nation T20I tournament also featuring Sri Lanka.
Karthik came into the crease with India needing 34 of the last two overs. He deposited the first ball from Rubel Hossain straight over the bowler’s head for a huge six. He followed it u with a four and a six which suddenly brought the calculation down to 18 of 9. The wicket-keeper batsmen ended the over with a scooped boundary over the fine leg-region as India needed 12 of the final over.
Vijay Shankar who was there in the striker’s end missed a couple but did manage to squeeze a boundary in the 4th delivery of the over with India needing 9 of 3. However, he was dismissed in the penultimate delivery leaving India 5 to win off the final delivery. Soumya Sarkar was feeling the nerves, and after bowling some good Yorkers, there was no need of bowling a length delivery. He bowled a full-length delivery outside the off stump and Karthik smashed it straight over the extra cover region to seal the deal for India.
CK Khanna heaped praise on the Rohit Sharma led Indian side. He also hailed Ravi Shastri and the entire team for putting up a great show. He also had some special words of encouragement for Karthik.
“What an amazing victory. What a great contribution by all the players. We congratulate Ravi Shastri and the entire team for this great achievement. And the consistency which they are maintaining, I am confident that they will continue the same against England also. Once again, I congratulate team and Dinesh Karthik for a brilliant knock under pressure. Great job done,” Khanna was quoted as saying by ANI.
