India captain Rohit Sharma injured his thumb during the second One-Day International against Bangladesh on Wednesday but came to bat at No 9 and nearly helped his team pull off a win with an unbeaten 51 off 28.
Asked to bowl first, India had Bangladesh reeling at 69/6 before Mehidy Hasan Miraz (100 off 83 balls) stitched a 148-run partnership off 165 balls with Mahmudullah (77 off 96) to take the hosts to a fighting total of 271/7.
In reply, Shreyas Iyer (82 off 102) and Axar Patel (56 off 56) made contributions along with Rohit but it wasn’t enough as India lost by five runs after finishing with 266/9. The result meant that India lost the three-match series 0-2 with one match to spare.
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In the post-match presentation ceremony, Rohit spoke about his injury, India’s struggle with the ball and their inability to build partnerships with the bat.
“It (thumb injury) isn’t too great. Some dislocation and some stitches. Fortunately, not a fracture and so, I was able to bat,” said Rohit.
The 35-year-old wasn’t pleased with how his bowlers let the hosts come back into the game.
“When you lose a game, there are positives and negatives. From being 69/6, allowing them to get to 270-odd wasn’t a great effort from our bowlers. We started well but the middle overs and the back end is what’s hurting us a lot. Happened in the last game as well. It’s something we need to work on,” said Rohit.
On the batting front, he said: “In One-Day cricket, it’s about partnerships and when you get those, you have to ensure that they are converted to match-winning partnerships. That’s what they did.
“If you get those 70-run stands, you need to convert them into 110-120 run partnerships for the team to win games, as it isn’t easy for the new batter. Need to be braver in the middle. Not taking anything away from Mehidy and Mahmudullah, was a great partnership but we also need to find ways of breaking such partnerships,” Rohit said.
The skipper also informed that there are a few injury concerns for India ahead of the third ODI on Saturday.
“There are few injury concerns, we need to get to the bottom of this. Need to try and monitor them, because it’s important to understand this. When they come to play for India, they need to be at more than 100 percent. We need to monitor their workload because we can’t have guys coming in to play for the country half-fit,” said Rohit.
Quotes courtesy PTI
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