IND v BAN | Nothing like beating India in India, admits Mushfiqur Rahim

Something about playing India makes 32-year-old Rahim tick and the stats confirm it. He averages significantly higher against the Men in Blue than any other opponent. On Sunday, his team was 54 for two and had just lost the wicket of debutant opener Mohammad Naim in the eighth over when he walked into bat. By the time he’d hit the fourth consecutive boundary off Khaleel Ahmed in the penultimate over the match, the result was sealed in his team’s favour. And Rahim loved every bit of playing the anchor role in front of a packed house at the Arun Jaitley Stadium and leading his country home.

“Soumya and I had a chat, and we thought of dragging the game deep, and any of the quicks could have been targeted for 15-20 in an over because the spinners got a lot of assistance so it was hard to hit them. Naim also played really well at the start,” Rahim said. 

“We are all happy as it was our first T20I win against India. 140 was a good total and they bowled well, but we managed to get over the line. We were not nervous. We were cool, calm and positive of chasing the target down. We miss Tamim and Shakib but the rest of the XI had a positive mindset,” Sarkar said.