Dubai, Sep 27: Bangladesh stunned favourites Pakistan in the virtual semi-finals and set up finals with defending champions India in the Asia Cup.
Defending a total of 239, Bangladesh bowlers put up a spirited show and restricted Pakistani batsmen to 202/9 in the stipulated 50 overs and won the game by 37 runs. While they were termed the dark horses ahead of the tournament, nobody counted Mashrafe Mortaza's boys as favourites.
The finals of 2018 is hence a repeat of 2016 when Bangladesh faced India for the summit clash but ended up on the losing side. They now face same opponents two years later and must be upbeat following dominating effort in the must-win game.
In the tournament which started with six teams has finally reached its conclusion as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong have been outplayed by India and Bangladesh.
India and Bangladesh have faced each other in the ODIs on 34 occasions out of which 28 have been won by Men In Blue while the Bangla Tigers came out victorious in 5 of them, while one match fetched no result.
While many feel the final showdown of the tournament won't be as gritty as it would have been had Pakitan made it to the finals, but Bangladesh aren't to be taken lightly for they are a highly competitive side in the limited-overs' format. The fact that they have never been able to beat India in the finals of any tournament gives them an opportunity to continue their impressive show and win this one.
Date: Friday (September 28)
Venue: Dubai - Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Timings: 5:00 PM (IST) Channel: Star Sports Network; India Matches on DD National
Live Streaming: HotStar.com
Match Starts at 5:00 PM
Teams:
India: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Khaleel Ahmed, Siddharth Kaul, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar.
Bangladesh: Masrafe Bin Mortaza (captain), Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mohammad Mithun, Litton Kumar Das, Mushfiqur Rahim, Ariful Haque, Mahmudullah, Mosaddek Hossain Saikat, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Nazmul Islam Apu, Rubel Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Abu Haider Rony.