Ind Bang World Cup'11: Bangladesh Fight But Sehwag, Kohli & Munaf Put Win out of Reach

Bangladesh will feel pained by the fact that they actually scored 283 runs in their allotted fifty overs and yet failed to win the match. However, India's batting had already done the talking and Bangladesh, despite the dignified fight, had to accept defeat as India avenged their embarrassment from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 encounter.

munaf patel sreesanth

The opening match saw the destructiveness of Virat Kohli and the dynamism of Virender Sehwag pile on a massive 370 run innings on the hosts. With that, Bangladesh virtually saw a repeat of beating India in a World Cup match go out the window. But it did not mean they could not go down fighting.

Few would have seen the point of pursuing the second half of the match. However, those that did decide to stick around, did the right thing because they witnessed a resilience about the Bangladesh team. It could not have been easy coming out to bat, knowing that a match of such importance already had the result written on the wall. Knowing that the bowlers fell under the initial spell of pressure, the batsmen then put on a commendable performance that outshone the fact that Bangladesh lost the match by eighty-seven runs.

Leading the way was Tamim Iqbal with seventy runs. But then there was also the promise of Imrul Kayes and Junaid Siddique befroe the Bangladesh captain, Shakib Al Hasan, stood for his mates with a half century of his own. The fact that the top Bangladesh batsmen were amongst the runs must be a worry for India.

However, for Bangladesh to score at almost six runs an over and still lose the game is not entirely a loss although in this format, everything hinges on wins. That Bangladesh showed little distress at scoring at that fair clip means Bangladesh can take a lot of confidence out of this match while the bowlers will undoubtedly be expected to perform better next time round after the Mirpur experience.

India have a long break to ensure that Sreesanth extracts swing without necessarily leaking runs, resulting in Yuvraj Singh turning into a full time bowler. Munaf Patel and Zaheer Khan did well in that sense, with the former picking up four wickets to set Bangladesh back. India's bowling line up may undergo a rethink before their next encounter, while Bangladesh need to find their first win of the tournament.