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Bangladesh v India, 1st ODI, Mirpur

Doing it in singles

S Rajesh and HR Gopalakrishna

May 10, 2007

The protagonists of India's win walk off after a job well done © AFP

Before this match, the highest score by an Indian wicketkeeper in an ODI against Bangladesh was 27 not out, by Parthiv Patel at Dhaka in 2003. That was partly due to the fact that the top order was often enough to do the job for India, but against this much-improved Bangladesh outfit, there was plenty left to do with India's specialists all back in the hutch. It was left to two specialist wicketkeepers - one of whom was playing solely as a batsman - to salvage the situation, and they did it with remarkable poise.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni was battling a hamstring problem, while Dinesh Karthik had plenty to prove after being selected only for his batting skills, but both combined splendidly in their 107-run stand, which came off 108 balls. As the table below shows, neither batsman aimed for the glory of boundaries; instead they worked the ball around for ones and twos to keep the score moving. With Dhoni injured, that meant plenty of work for his runner, Yuvraj Singh, as 52 singles and 12 twos were taken. Dhoni deserved his Man-of-the-Match award, but Karthik's contribution was equally vital - he faced 12 more balls but scored 16 more runs than Dhoni. Equally impressive was his ability to score quickly without finding the boundaries - he scored only four fours in 58, but yet got his runs off just 60 balls. His most effective shot was the sweep, a stroke which fetched him 16 runs and helped throw the Bangladesh left-arm spinners off their rhythm.

How Dhoni and Karthik scored their runs during their stand
	Runs/ balls	Dot balls	Singles/ twos	Fours/ Sixes	Runs per over
Mahendra Singh Dhoni	42/ 48	19	22/ 6	2/ 0	5.25
Dinesh Karthik	58/ 60	22	30/ 6	4/ 0	5.80
Total	100/ 108	41	52/ 12	6/ 0	5.55

The key to this match was the way the Indians handled Bangladesh's three left-arm spinners - they were reasonably economical, conceding 125 runs from 28 overs, but they took just two wickets. In the World Cup clash, they had combined to take 6 for 117 from 30 overs. Their inability to take the wickets cost Bangladesh the game.

More stats

The 107-run unfinished stand between Dhoni and Karthik is the 16th century partnership for the sixth wicket for India in ODIs, and their seventh hundred stand for all wickets against Bangladesh. It's their first century stand for the sixth wicket in ODIs against Bangladesh.

Dhoni has now made 15 fifty-plus scores in ODIs. Among Indian wicketkeepers, only Rahul Dravid has more - he has 18 scores of more than 50 in games in which he kept wicket. These two are well ahead of the pack - among Indian wicketkeepers, the third place is shared by Surinder Khanna and Nayan Mongia: both had two fifty-plus scores as wicketkeepers.

The 78-run opening stand between Javed Omar and Tamim Iqbal is Bangladesh's first 50-plus stand for the first wicket against India - their previous best was 31 between Nafees Iqbal and Rajin Saleh at Dhaka in 2004.

Virender Sehwag became the sixth Indian batsman to get to 5000 runs in ODIs - he joins Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Dravid, Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja. (Click here for Sehwag's career summary in ODIs.)

Mohammad Ashraful became the fourth Bangladesh cricketer to play 100 ODIs, after Khaled Mashud, Mohammad Rafique and Habibul Bashar.