Dhaka [Bangladesh], December 8 : Following his side's five-run loss to Bangladesh in the second ODI, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma, who sustained a thumb injury while fielding but played a valiant knock of 51* while coming down the order, said that he has some dislocation in his thumb and there is no fracture.
Bangladesh survived a late blitz from an injured Rohit Sharma to secure a narrow five-run win to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match ODI series at the Shere Bangla National Stadium here on Wednesday.
"It (thumb injury) is not too great. Some dislocation and some stitches. Fortunately, not a fracture and so, I was able to bat," said Rohit about his injury in the post-match presentation.
"When you lose a game, there are positives and negatives. From being 69/6, allowing them to get to 270-odd was not a great effect from our bowlers. We started well but the middle overs and the back end is what is hurting us a lot. Happened in the last game as well. It is something we need to work on. Not taking anything away from Mehidy and Mahmudullah, was a great partnership but we also need to find ways of breaking such partnerships. In One-Day cricket, it's about partnerships and when you get those, you have to ensure that they are converted to match-winning partnerships. That is what they did. If you get those 70-run stands, you need to convert them into 110-120 run partnerships for the team to win games, as it isn't easy for the new batter. Need to be braver in the middle," added Rohit about his team's performance and stand between Mehidy and Mahmudullah.
"There are few injury concerns, we need to get to the bottom of this. Need to try and monitor them, because it is important to understand this. When they come to play for India, they need to be at more than 100 per cent. We need to monitor their workload because we cannot have guys coming in to play for the country half-fit," concluded Rohit talking about injuries to Deepak Chahar and Kuldeep Sen.
Bangladesh now has an unassailable lead of 2-0 in the series.
Opting to bat first, Bangladesh was off to a bad start and were reduced to 69/6. From that point, Mehidy Hasan Miraz (100*) and Mahmudullah (77) put a match-winning stand of 148 runs for the seventh wicket that powered their side to 271/7 in their 50 overs.
Washington Sundar (3/37) was the pick of the bowlers for India. Mohammed Siraj and Umran Malik also took two wickets.
Chasing 272, India was also reduced to 65/4 due to some fantastic bowling by Bangladesh. Shreyas Iyer (82) continued his golden run with the bat, putting a 107-run stand with bowling all-rounder Axar Patel (56) for the fifth wicket. After these two batters were dismissed, Bangladesh seemed to have made a comeback in the game.
However, skipper Rohit came down the order with an injured thumb and almost stole the game from Bangladesh, smashing an unbeaten 51 off 28 balls with three fours and five sixes. But a maiden 48th over played by Mohammed Siraj and bowled by Mustafizur Rahman boosted Bangladesh's chances of winning. However, Rohit carried on with his carnage, but Mustafizur held his nerves to defend 20 runs in last over to pull off a memorable win.
Ebadot Hossain (3/45), Mehidy Hasan Miraz (2/46) were impressive for Bangladesh. Shakib also picked up two scalps while Mustafizur and Mahmudullah got one wicket each.
Mehidy's all-round performance earned him the 'Man of the Match' title.