The Indian team produced a dominating display in the second semi-finals of the Champions Trophy 2017 at Edgbaston. Despite Tamim Iqbal 70, Rahim 61, Bangladesh scored a below bar total of 264 while Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli played with positive intent helping the Men in Blue to reach the second successive finals of Champions Trophy history.
The Indian captain Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to field first at Edgbaston earlier today. Bangladesh got off to a worse possible start losing the wicket of Soumya Sarkar in the first over itself by Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Sabbir Rahman came to the crease and looked to attack the Indian new ball pair. In the 7th over Bhuvneshwar Kumar struck again to dismiss Sabbir Rahman. At the end of first 10 overs, Bangladesh were 46 for 2.
Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim steadied the Bangladesh batting. Hardik Pandya cleaned bowled Iqbal but the bowler overstepped and it was called as no ball. After that both batsmen made the batting look easy with great timing. Tamim continued his brilliant form in the tournament with 50 in 62 balls. At 154 for 2, things were looking bright for Bangladesh but Kedar Jadhav took the wicket of well-set Iqbal for 70. The Indian bowlers showed great control and picked wickets at regular intervals to stop the flow of runs. Rahim completed his fifty in 61 balls. Kedar Jadhav dismissed Rahim and changed the course of the game. The Bangladesh batsmen were not able to score runs with ease. At the end of 50 overs, the Tigers scored 264 in 50 overs.
Chasing the target of 265, the openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma started the Indian innings on a positive note with both batsmen looking in great touch putting the bad balls away for boundaries. At the end of first 10 overs, India scored 63 runs. Dhawan was dismissed for 46 ending 87 runs partnership for the opening wicket. The left handed batsmen became the highest runs scorer for India in Champions Trophy history surpassing Sourav Ganguly.
Rohit Sharma completed his fifty in 57 balls while Virat Kohli played great strokes off the pacers as well as spinners. He too completed his fifty in 42 balls to put India in a dominating position. Both of them made light work of the target. Sharma completed his century in 111 balls and remained not out on 123 while captain Kohli remained not out on 96. India dominated the game winning the match by 9 wickets with 59 balls to spare. Bangladesh bowlers were ineffective and did not pose any threat to the powerful Indian batting line up.
India 265 for 1 in 40.1 overs (Rohit Sharma 123*, Virat Kohli 96*) beat Bangladesh 264 for 7 in 50 overs ( Tamim Iqbal 70, Mushfiqur Rahim 61, Kedar Jadhav 2/22, Jasprit Bumrah 2/39) by 9 wickets
India will play Pakistan in the finals on 18th June at Oval, London.
