Young Tigers, who left the country with a high hope to regain the title of the ICC Under-19 World Cup made their campaign with a bitter experiences when they suffered a massive 84 runs defeat to India on Saturday.
Held at the Bolemfontein Bangladesh skipper Mahfuzu Rahman Rabby won the toss and elected to bowl first.
Bowlers despite restricted India on 251 runs for seven wickets, batters failed to reach the target, as they could score only 167 runs before being all-out.
Only Ariful Islam at number four and number sixth bat Mohammed Shihab James showed some confident scoring 41 and 54 runs respectively.
Bangladesh, though made a good start with opening stand scored 28 runs by 6.5 overs when Ashiqur Rahman Shibli and Jishan Alam both openers scored 14 runs each.
After losing the openers tried to stage a comeback, apart from Aruful Islam and Mohammed Shihab Bangladesh lost their wickets in regular interval, as six batters were batter failed to reach in double digit.
Some whirlwind batting from fifth wicket stand of Arif and James boosted hopes to come back with scoring 77 runs from 20.2 overs. But Musher Khan made the breakthrough just to ruin all hopes of Tigers.
After losing Arif, the longtime partner, James could stay for a long as he was also backed to the dressing room when Musheer Khan trapped him lbw for 54 runs.
Saumy Pandey, who made the initial damage, claimed four wicket and Musheer Khan rampaged the middle order to shattered Bangladesh hopes.
Maruf Mridha’s double strike on fourth and eighth over put India into an early trouble.
India reduced to 31 for two wickets by 7.2 overs and despite the early loss with the openers Arshin Kulkarni going for seven and one down Musheer Khan for three runs, there was an aggressive start by Adarsh Singh rescued the team from early setback.
India back in charge when it needed a fighting partnership, and Adarsh Singh and captain Uday Saharan did the job successfully to lift them (India) to a fighting total.
Adarsh Singh and captain Uday Saharan, the third wicket partners played with full dominance over the bowlers to bring the score from 31/2 to 147 for three.
It was then that Adarsh Singh’s quality shone through along with captain Saharan, exhibited patience as well as ruthlessness, particularly the opener played a worthy 76 runs innings.
Adarsh Singh hit six fours on the way to play the most significant innings after coming into crease during team’s early trouble and kept India strongly in the game, with Saharan providing a solid hand at the other end.
Uday Saharan, who supported Adarsh Singh scored 64 from 96 deliveries with the duo took the defending champions to 147/3 to pave the way of scoring a challenging total for Bangladesh.
Bangladesh captain Rabby, including him used seven bowlers to depart the partnership, looked unstoppable. Finally, Rabby sent back his Indian counterpart Uday Saharan.
Maruf Mridha, who drew the first blood with taking two wickets in a quick succession, struck again and claimed another couple of wickets of Aravelly Avanish for 23, who also looked danger to punish Bangladesh bowlers and Priyanshu Moliya, who also scored 23 runs.
But Sachin Dhas, number seven bats played a valuable unbeaten 26 off 20 balls to help India to score a fighting total of 250 runs from 50 overs for seven wickets.
Maruf Mridha was the most successful bowler to restrict Indian innings by 250 wit taking five wickets 43 runs in his eight overs spells.
Rabbi and Rizwan were the other wickets takers for Bangladesh with claiming one wicket each.
