Litton's rejuvenated journey burns bright in Adelaide

It's better late than never, they say. Litton Das, who opened for the first time in this World Cup, responded in supreme style with a delightful 27-ball 60 at the Adelaide Oval that saw Bangladesh lose a closely-fought contest against India by five runs.

Chasing a stiff total of 185, Bangladesh needed a flying start at the top and Litton offered a bit more than that. The 28 year-old keeper-batter took on all three Indian pacers and helped Bangladesh post their best powerplay score (60/0) of the tournament.

"He's (Litton Das) our best batter going around. The way he batted in the powerplay gave us a lot of momentum and gave us the belief that we could chase this with the short boundaries here," Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan said during the post-match presentation. "This was not an out of the box innings as we all know that he is capable of playing this type of innings," he added.

Renowned for his outrageous talent with the bat, Litton has also been known to be someone who wears his heart on his sleeve. After being dropped from the Bangladesh T20I squad last year, following his dismal show in the World Cup, Litton was well aware that irrespective of the talent that he possesses, he will only make it on the basis of runs he scored.

Bangladesh team management, however, told media that they have rested Litton as they wanted him to come back strongly after a poor run in the last T20 World Cup, where he managed to scored just 133 runs from eight matches at an average of 16.62 and a strike rate of 94.00.

"I can take anything in my stride. I know I am dropped (against Pakistan in the T20Is) and even you know that, so why are we trying to project that I am rested? I haven't played so much that I need rest, and furthermore, I know, if I am not scoring, sooner or later I will be dropped because eventually runs are all that matters," he had told Cricbuzz.

Incidentally, since his return to the T20I side, Litton has scored a total of 534 runs in 18 T20Is that includes four 50s with an average of 29.66 and a strike rate of 140.52.

After his superlative innings against India, it finally seems as if Litton has erased the lines of pain and agony of losing his place and is ready to scale more peaks in the shortest format.