November 3, 2019, will be remembered as the day when Delhi got two major shocks: one from the smog (coughs while writing) & the other from the Bangladesh Cricket team which completely shook the Hitman’s army by defeating them at the Ferozshah Kotla and registering their 1st ever T20 win against India.

As it Happened

Bangladesh won the toss after the match began following a long-standing controversy about the game being played even after the poor air quality. What began as a great start turned into a nightmare in the very first over for India as they lost skipper Rohit Sharma on the last ball of the 1st over after hitting 2 handsome boundaries right out of the screws.

KL Rahul & Shreyas Iyer were off to good starts but couldn’t manage any more than 15 and 21 after hitting two extremely lousy shots to the spinner. Shikhar Dhawan was the only batsman who looked a little comfortable on the slow pitch of Ferozshah Kotla. However, he struggled with his strike rate as he made 41 off 42 balls before getting run out after a miscommunicating with Rishabh Pant who was at the non-striker’s end.

Rishabh Pant too struggled with shifting to the next gear as he could only manage 27 off 26 balls. In the end, India put on 148-6 courtesy some hard-hitting by Washington Sundar & Krunal Pandya in the death overs. Bangladesh had managed to restrict India to a very chase-able target but they had to make sure they do not choke like they usually do.

Bangladesh had a very bad start after they lost opener Liton Das in the very first over to Rahul Chahar’s short outside the off-stump slower delivery that was caught cleanly square of the wicket. It was Somya Sarkar who took charge and made batting look fairly easy taking chances, calculated risks and stepping out every once in awhile playing lofted drives down to the boundary for four.

After losing another wicket, Mushfiqur Rahim, who’s had a fantastic run against India every time he’s played, took to the occasion and went on to take on the Indian bowlers and played one of the best innings he’s ever played.

After losing out on a careless review (courtesy: Rishabh Pant), India lost a chance to get an absolute plumb lbw decision. If that was not enough, Krunal Pandya dropped an absolute dolly down to the boundary which resulted in a boundary and in the next over, the fortunate Rahim hit 3 successive boundaries to Khaleel Ahmed in the 19th over. Those 6 balls completely took the game away from India and then, hitting it out of the boundary for a six to finish proceedings was just a formality for Mushfiqur Rahim & Bangladesh. He made 60 off just 43 balls breaking Bangladesh’s losing streak against India.

The Aftermath

Major debates have been taking rounds after this huge upset as a Shakib-less Bangladesh walked over a good looking on-paper team India. Not playing Sanju Samson & Manish Pandey in the team was definitely a move the Indian think tank would want to rollback. Pant has been given his share of chances and hasn’t really been maximizing them at all and above all that his carelessness behind the stumps has been very much visible to not only Rohit Sharma but all cricket fans at large as well.

Shivam Dube did not have a good debut at all after he failed with both bat and ball. The second T20 might see Manish Pandey and Sanju Samson in the squad. Samson has been proving himself a number of times in the domestic circle and the Indian Premier League but hasn’t got a chance in the team. If not now, then when? It would be a huge question on Rohit Sharma’s mind and Coach Ravi Shastri too. The T20 world cup is coming up next year and the performance that India put on yesterday is clearly not the standard with which they’d like to enter into the competition.

People have missed Kohli, Bumrah & Dhoni after last night’s encounter. Bowlers like Chahal who bowled well did not get the backup from the fielding they deserved. Well, let’s just hope we see better cricket from the Indian side in the 2nd T20 on 7th November at Rajkot.

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