Dhawan's fluent fifty leads India to easy win over Bangladesh

Opener Shikhar Dhawan struck his second successive fifty to guide India to a six-wicket victory over Bangladesh in the Twenty20 Tri-Series match in Colombo on Thursday.

• Scorecard

The left-hander made 55 as India, who lost to hosts Sri Lanka by five wickets in the tournament opener on Tuesday, chased down their 140-run target with eight deliveries to spare.

Put in to bat, Bangladesh failed to get much momentum in their innings due to the loss of wickets at regular intervals and only posted a modest 139 for eight in their 20 overs.

Rohit Sharma, leading India in the absence of the regular skipper Virat Kohli, fell for 17 and Rishabh Pant was also dismissed cheaply.

But the target was not steep enough to cause major problems for India as Dhawan, who scored 90 against Sri Lanka, combined with Suresh Raina in a third-wicket stand of 68 to put them firmly on course for victory.

Dhawan hit five fours and two sixes in his 43-ball knock before he became the final wicket to fall, holing out at long on off paceman Taskin Ahmed.

Raina contributed 28 and Manish Pandey scored 27 from 19 balls to steer India home.

Earlier, India's young bowling produced a disciplined effort to restrict Bangladesh to a modest 139 for eight.

After a nightmarish effort against hosts Sri Lanka in the opener, the inexperienced line-up gave a much better account of themselves, using the conditions well, much to the delight of their skipper Rohit Sharma.

The testimony to a better performance was as many as 55 dot balls (9.1 overs) being bowled by the Indian bowling attack.

On a slow Premadasa track, all-rounder Vijay Shankar's (2/32 in 4 overs) wicket-to-wicket stuff proved to be handy even though he had three catches dropped off his bowling, while Jaydev Unadkat was the highest wicket-taker as he picked up three for 38.

Captain Rohit once again started with off-spinner Washington Sundar and the normally dangerous Tamim Iqbal (15) found it difficult to get going in the Powerplay overs. Sundar bowled as many as 13 dot balls in those first six overs.

His partner Soumya Sarkar (14) flicked Unadkat over long-leg for a six but the Saurashtra left-armer had the last laugh when he was caught at short fine-leg trying to whip a rising delivery.

Tamim's misery was ended by a well-disguised short-ball from Shardul Thakur as he mistimed the pull shot and was caught by Unadkat at short fine-leg.

Liton Das, who made 34, and former skipper Mushfiqur Rahim (18) added 31 runs for the third wicket to repair the early damage.

Rahim, in fact, started with a switch hit sweep and a conventional slog sweep off Yuzvendra Chahal.

Shankar, playing his second international game, impressed every one by hitting the right length time and again.

The lack of pace in his bowling, was managed well by managing to hit the good length spot with Suresh Raina dropping a dolly at mid-off to give Liton a reprieve. Liton once again got lucky as another Shankar bouncer saw him try to clear the deep fine leg but Sundar running in from fine leg failed to hold on as he dived forward.

However in his next over, Shankar got his first international wicket when Mushfiqur edged one to Dinesh Karthik behind the stumps.

Skipper Mahmudullah was frustrated by Chahal's variations and in his desperate bid tried to hit Shankar inside out gave an easy catch to Shardul at sweeper cover boundary.

Liton couldn't utilise the chances that he got as Chahal enticed him with a flighted delivery and Raina pouched a simple catch at long-off.

Shankar was again unlucky in his final over, when he sprinted around 35 metres towards vacant on side trying to latch onto a catch off his own bowling. The batsman in question was Shabbir Rahman (30), whose lusty blows towards the end gave Bangaldesh's total, a semblance of respectability.