Opener Shahriar Nafees scored an unbeaten 70 and Alok Kapali chipped in with 44 to lead Bangladesh to a comprehensive five-wicket win over India in the ICL Twenty20 World Series on Tuesday.
Chasing 165 to win, Bangladesh reached their target with three balls to spare.
The duo put on 58 runs for the third wicket to lay the foundation for the Bangladesh win. Kapali hit two boundaries and four sixes in his 23-ball knock while Nafees had four boundaries and sixes apiece in his 54-ball innings.
Prior to that Nafees also shared a 52-run second-wicket stand with Aftab Ahmed (26) to ensure India's joy of having got the opening breakthrough Nazimuddin (2) early on was shortlived.
There was a bit of a wobble in the end in the form of two quick wickets but the two strong partnerships up front had already ensured the inevitable.
Needing 11 to win off the last over, Nafees hit a boundary and a six off Murtaza's first two balls to tie the scores and took a single of the third to settle the issue in his side's favour.
He was named the man-of-the-match.
Earlier, R Sathish hit 44 and Ibrahim Khaleel and Stuart Binny contributed 27 apiece to help India post 164 for nine in their stipulated 20 overs.
Sathish's 20-ball knock comprised of two hits to the fence and four huge ones over it and he was out in the penultimate ball of the innings.
But the bane of the Indian innings was the fact that there were no partnerships and whenever they did threaten to forge one like the 43 runs scored for the second wicket between Khaleel and Ambati Rayudu (22) or the 44-run stand between Sathish and Reetinder Sodhi (11) for the sixth they ended up losing a wicket. The batsmen got out mostly playing rash shots.
Mosharraf Hussain was the most successful Bangladesh bowler with figures of three for 48. He was ably supported by Tapash Baishya (two for 33).
