Reddy stars as India crush Bangladesh to clinch series

Rookie all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy smashed 74 and took two wickets to help India thrash Bangladesh by 86 runs for a series-clinching win in the second T20 international on Wednesday.

Reddy’s blitz included four fours and seven sixes and his 108-run fourth-wicket stand with Rinku Singh, who hit 53, powered India to 221-9 at New Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla ground.

India, led by Suryakumar Yadav, kept Bangladesh down to 135-9 in 20 overs to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.

It is the 16th successive T20 series win for India at home since 2019.

Mahmudullah Riyad top-scored with 41 for Bangladesh after the veteran batsman on Tuesday announced his retirement from T20 internationals at the end of this series.

The 38-year-old Mahmudullah hit three sixes in his 39-ball knock of his 140th T20 for Bangladesh.

Spinner Varun Chakravarthy and medium-pace bowler Reddy, playing his second match after he made his international debut in the opening win, took two wickets each for India.

The 21-year-old Reddy was named player of the match.

The tourists elected to field first and reduced India to 41-3 inside six overs before Reddy and Rinku counter-attacked in their century stand.

“I wanted that situation, wanted my batters (five, six, seven)) in that situation,” said Suryakumar.

“Happy for both (Rinku and Nitish) of them. They batted exactly the way I wanted. You got to go out there and express.”

Suryakumar praised his bowlers, especially Reddy, saying, “I wanted to see what different bowlers can do in different situations. Can they give me the difficult overs? It was his (Nitish) day, I thought let him enjoy and make it large.”

Reddy took on the attack with sixes and fours and reached his fifty in 27 balls.

Reddy hammered Mehidy Hasan Miraz for three sixes and a four before being caught out by him in the next over from Mustafizur Rahman.

Rinku kept up the attack as he smashed fast bowler Tanzim Hasan for two fours and a six to raise his fifty in 26 balls but soon got out to Taskin Ahmed.

Hardik Pandya made 32 off 19 balls before being dismissed by leg-spinner Rishad Hossain, who got two more wickets in the final over to end with three.

Bangladesh scored 14 in the first over but were never in the chase as they lost regular wickets to slip to 46-4 in 6.5 overs.

Spinners struck regular blows as Washington Sundar sent back skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto for 11 and Chakravarthy bowled Litton Das for 14 and the tourists could never recover despite Mahmudullah’s knock.

“Need to take responsibilities as batsmen,” Najmul said. “We have got to believe in ourselves. The way our bowlers bowled, they were impressive, but we couldn’t take wickets in the middle overs.”

Reddy dismissed Mahmudullah and returned with bowling figures of 2-23 from his four overs.

The third match is on Saturday in Hyderabad.