Tilak Varma's stormy half-century made IND's explosive entry in the final, defeated BAN by 9 wickets in a one-sided match
The Indian cricket team defeated Bangladesh by 9 wickets in the semi-final match of the Asian Games 2023 on Friday. With this, the Indian team entered the gold medal match. Tilak Verma played an important role in India's victory by playing the best innings of his career. India will face the winner between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the final.
Thanks to the strong performance of Tilak Verma (55*) and spinners, the Indian team has entered the gold medal match of the Asian Games 2023 being held in Hangzhou, China on Friday. India defeated Bangladesh by 9 wickets with 64 balls remaining in the one-sided semi-final.
Bangladesh accepted the invitation to bat first and scored 96 runs losing 9 wickets in 20 overs. In reply, India achieved the target by losing one wicket in just 9.2 overs. India will face the winner of the second semi-final to be played between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the final.
India did not have a good start while chasing the target of 97 runs. Yashasvi Jaiswal was out in the very first over without opening the account. Yashasvi flicked the ball of Ripon Mandal and the alert Mrityunjay Chaudhary took an easy catch at short fine leg.
After this, Tilak Verma and Ruturaj Gaikwad destroyed the Bangladeshi bowlers. Both of them took the score to 50 runs in just 22 balls. Tilak Verma looked more aggressive and made the best score of his T20 International career with a half-century.
Tilak Verma scored an unbeaten 55 runs in 26 balls with the help of two fours and six sixes. His strike rate was 211.53. Whereas captain Ruturaj Gaikwad scored an unbeaten 40 runs in 26 balls with the help of four fours and three sixes. There was an undefeated match-winning partnership of 97 runs between these two. Ripon Mandal got the only wicket from Bangladesh.
Before this, Bangladesh had a very slow start. By the time the powerplay ended, it had lost 3 wickets at the score of 21 runs. The first blow to Bangladesh was given by R Sai Kishore in the fifth over when he got Mahmudul Hasan Joy (5) caught out by Yashasvi Jaiswal. Washington Sundar showed his magic in the next over.
Sundar got Bangladesh captain Saif Hasan (1) caught out by Rinku Singh. Then Sundar did not even allow Zakir Hasan to open an account and made Jaiswal proud. Bangladesh team could not recover from these setbacks.
Bangladeshi batsmen succumbed to the Indian spinners. Only three Bangladeshi batsmen could score double-digit runs. Zakir Ali was the best scorer of Bangladesh. He scored 24 unbeaten runs with the help of one six in 29 balls.
For India, R Sai Kishore took a maximum of three wickets. Washington Sundar got two wickets. Arshdeep Singh, Tilak Verma, debutant Shahbaz Ahmed, and Ravi Bishnoi had one success each.
