By Apurva Bhatt
India’s dream run at the World Cup continues, as they notched up their seventh win of the tournament and beat Bangladesh by 109 runs to enter the cricket World Cup semifinals.
The victory was more special as it was MS Dhoni’s 100th One Day win, making him only the third captain, after Ricky Ponting (165 wins) and Allan Border (107 wins). Guided by Rohit, the defending champions posted a challenging total of 302/6 in 50 overs in the quarterfinal.
Later, the Bangladeshi batsmen proved no match for the Indian bowlers, who skittled out the youngest Test-playing nation for 193 runs in 45 overs. Chasing 303, Bangladesh never got going and kept losing wickets steadily. Opener Tamim Iqbal (25) looked a little dangerous at the start but his wicket in the seventh over started the collapse. None of the Bangladesh batsmen stepped up to play the anchor's role. The only notable partnership came from Nasir Hossain (35) and Sabbir Rahman (30) who struck a 50-run stand for the seventh wicket.
But it was a little too late to resurrect the innings for Bangladesh, who had lost six wickets at 139 by the 36th over. On a day when Mohammed Shami (2/37) and Mohit Sharma (1/36) went for a few runs, it was Umesh Yadav who rose to the occasion to clinch his career-best figures of 4/31.
Also, with his two wickets, Shami is now the highest wicket-taker of the World Cup with 17 scalps.
