Three out of three for boys in blue, first prelims over

Opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan scored his second ton in the tournament as Indian colts swamped Bangladesh by 131 runs to march into the supe...

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Opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan scored his second ton in the tournament as Indian colts swamped Bangladesh by 131 runs to march into the super league stage of the under-19 World Cup here today.

‘Man of the match’ Dhawan scored 120 to set the foundation for a huge Indian innings total, 309-7 in 50 overs, before the bowlers skittled out the hosts for 178.

The victory, India’s third in as many matches, enabled them to top group C.

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Leg-spinner Abhishek Sharma and left-arm tweaker Praveen Gupta shared the bowling honours for the winners with three scalps apiece while Aftab Ahmed was the top-scorer for Bangldesh with a 29-ball 44.

Put into bat, India were off to a flying start with Dhawan, who had scored an unbeaten 155 against Scotland, putting on 135 runs for the first wicket with Robin Uthappa (59) in 24.1 overs. Uthappa’s dismissal was followed by the hosts snaring two more quick wickets, that of Ambati Rayudu (10) and Suresh Raina (2) in a space of seven overs to check the scoring rate.

But the late order batsmen — Dinesh Karthik (25), Gaurav Dhiman (32) and Abhishek Sharma (23) used the long-handle to good effect to take the score past the 300-mark.

Brief scores:

India: 309-7 in 50 overs (S Dhawan 120, R Uthappa 59; N Chowdhury 2-45, N Islam 2-47) beat

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Bangladesh 178 all out in 40.3 overs (A Ahmed 44, D Ghosh 26; P Gupta 3-21, A Sharma 3-39) by 131 runs.