An intense opening clash between India and Bangladesh created a flutter on day one of the Champions Trophy 2025. There were records galore: Mohammed Shami became the fastest Indian to get to 200 wickets, Rohit Sharma inserted himself into the record books as the second-fastest to reach 11,000 runs, and he registered his 100th win as captain of India. And more besides.
There were, however, numerous misses on this day that will haunt Rohit Arms and Axar Patel for a while to come. Bangladesh were put in by Rohit, but Shami and Axar worked in tandem to cause something of a collapse. At one stage, Bangladesh could only flounder on 35 for 5 before putting up a decent score.
That 35/5 could easily have turned to 35/6 had only Rohit held on to a regulation slip catch of Jaker Ali. That would have also begged the question of a hat-trick as Axar had sent back Tanzid Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim with the previous two deliveries.
After fastidiously letting the ball slip, Rohit slapped the pitch in sheer desolation a few times before folding his hands and apologizing to Axar for the error.
Afterward, in a heartfelt post-match presentation, he offered another olive branch.
“May take him (Axar) for dinner tomorrow (smiles),” Rohit continued. “No, it was an easy catch. I should have taken that catch with the standards I have set for myself. But I do know that things like these do happen. Credit to Hridoy and Jaker for sharing a good partnership.”
