India beat Bangladesh to reach the T20 World Cup semi-finals thanks to Virat Kohli

The Indian skipper Virat Kohli became the highest run-scorer in T20 World Cup history on Wednesday as his side edged Bangladesh by five runs in a rain-hit T20 World Cup match in Adelaide that went down to the last ball as India beat Bangladesh by five runs.

With a win against Zimbabwe in their final Group 2 match on Sunday, India will go top of the group and strengthen their chances of reaching the semi-finals after Bangladesh struggled to chase 151 in 16 overs in their revised chase of 152.

A brilliant 64 from Kohli had steered India to 184-6, yet Bangladesh had appeared to be on track to win after racing to 66-0 in seven overs before rain stopped play and caused four overs to be lost.

A 27-ball 60 was hit by the opener Liton Das, but his run out after the interruption of 50 minutes heralded the collapse of Bangladesh and they ended the match on 145-6.

Aside from Nurul Hasan’s six and four to get India going, left-arm pace bowler Arshdeep Singh, who was bowling for India at the time, held his nerve as the last ball was bowled by him to give India their third victory in four matches.

With this result, Bangladesh has all but been eliminated from the semi-finals.

There was no doubt that Das had given the team an early advantage, reaching his fifty in just 21 balls, but when he fell to KL Rahul’s direct hit, India came back into the game in a big way.

In one over, Arshdeep struck twice to reverse the tide of the game by taking the wicket of Shakib Al Hasan for 13 runs.

Bangladesh slumped from 98-2 to 108-6 in the 13th over after Hardik Pandya took two wickets as Bangladesh fell short of their DLS method target despite Hasan’s 14-ball 25 in the 13th over.

As a result, Kohli hit an unbeaten 64 and KL Rahul chipped in with a blazing 50 in order to set up India’s triumph with an unbeaten stand of 67.

By scoring 1,016 runs, Kohli became the highest scorer in the history of the T20 World Cup and overtook former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene’s total of 1,016 runs.

While Jayawardene set his record from 31 innings, Kohli was able to surpass his record in only 23 innings.

Match-winning fifties

At Adelaide Oval, Kohli, who had already scored two match-winning half-centuries for India at this World Cup, smashed his third fifty in 37 balls to bring alive the Indian crowd dominated by seventy percent of his countrymen.

After Bangladesh decided to field against India in the first innings, Taskin Ahmed kept India on the back foot with an impressive opening burst of seam and swing bowling.

With Rohit Sharma out cheaply for two, Rahul went on the counterattack to regain his batting touch with a flurry of boundaries during the course of the match.

It was the first time that Rahul, who had just 22 runs in the previous three matches, had scored a six and a four in a 24-run ninth over as the Indian run rate soared.

It was Shakib who got him to 50 but on the next ball from the left-arm spinner, he fell after hitting three fours and four sixes in the earlier innings.

After Bangladesh bowlers failed to deal with Suryakumar Yadav’s nonchalant hit, Shakib Khan struck again after he had made 30 off 16 deliveries, but the Bangladesh bowlers couldn’t take a breather since Surya Kumar joined Kohli in keeping up the attack.

Kohli anchored his innings with a fine six and four in the final over, while Ravichandran Ashwin came in for a six-ball cameo for 13 which included a six and four.