He came. He smashed. He won us the game. That was Dinesh Karthik for you today, ladies and gentleman. Fizz had just bowled the over of the tournament, tormenting young Vijay Shankar who failed to put the bat on the ball and had the wicket of Manish Pandey, who was just about loosening up, on the very last ball of his spell. Many would have believed that Mustafizur had done India in and 34 off the last 12 seemed a rather improbable target to achieve given the batting to follow. Karthik, however, had different plans for tonight and rest, as they say, is history.

The Nidahas Trophy final was played between India and Bangladesh after the latter pulled off an amazing chase against the hosts in a do or die battle. The match was well poised at one stage and kept further going away from Bangladesh if it were not for Mahmudullah’s heroics, who played a couple of sensational shots in the final over to seal a spot in the finals. It was however marred by controversies and ugly scenes in the middle. I will stick just to the finals and will leave it for another post. There is something about India vs Bangladesh encounters going into the final over. India seems to have the upper hand at the moment and they have successfully stretched their unbeaten record against Bangladesh up to 8 games now.

Having won the toss, India invited Bangladesh to bat first and the bowlers got us off to a good start, sending back both the openers inside the powerplay. Wickets kept falling at regular intervals as the result of which, the run rate was always under control, except for the last four where the Bangladeshis were having a swing at everything. A brilliant innings from Sabbir propelled their score to 166, something the bowlers could defend. India started off strongly with Rohit taking Mehidy Hasan to cleaners in his very first over. The Indians showed positive intent throughout their innings until the middle overs arrived and soon boundaries dried up. The Hitman was holed out at long on trying to up the ante and Pandey was finding it difficult to get his timing right.

Vijay Shankar did not have a good night with the ball. He would have hoped to make up for it with the bat in hand though. He couldn’t manage to get going right from the word go and that over from Mustafizur made matters worse. The Fizz was difficult to put away and score off and he gave away just the one run and picked up Pandey’s wicket.

Out walked DK and it seemed as if he had been knocking a few from inside the dressing room. He smashed Rubel all around the park and in no time brought the target within reachable distance. The crowd had something to cheer about and they were rooting for India all the way. With 5 remaining to get off the final ball, the part-timer, Soumya, bowled it wide of off at length and Dinesh sent the ball sailing over the covers region for a maximum!!

That was a shot of a man in form, of a man high on confidence. He held the nerves when it mattered the most and provided the innings the final impetus that was required to get us over the line. He is in a very healthy frame of mind and would like to carry this into the IPL as well where he has been named the captain of the Knight Riders franchise for the upcoming season. Thank you, DK for giving us one hell of a final to remember.