The Test match ended the way it had begun – with India completely dominating Bangladesh. After Tamim Iqbal’s brilliant display on the the third day, Bangladesh were expected to put up a fight and make India earn their win. However, they had the misfortune to run into Zaheer Khan on fire.
The day started with India being sloppy in the field, and Bangladesh taking full advantage. Though Shahadat Hossain was the night-watchman, he batted for an appreciable length of time, and was unafraid to play his shots during this stay at the crease. Mohammad Ashraful at the other end was displaying the patience that all Bangladesh fans expected of him, and both put their heads down as the Indians were denied any early wicket. (more…)
Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid registered a new world record – that of the most century partnerships by any pair in cricket history, when they shared their 17th century stand in the second Test against Bangladesh.
India will go into the 2nd Test at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium in Mirpur, after comfortably winning by 113 runs in the first Test at Chittagong. They would be keen to maintain their winning momentum ahead of the crucial home series against South Africa in February.
Tamim Iqbal’s brief resistance and Mushfiqur Rahim’s crowd-pleasing century were way too inadequate for Bangladesh who had no surprises lined up on the final day. Even with an off-rhythm Sreesanth making it a virtual three-man attack, Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan paved India’s way to an eventually comfortable win despite their first-innings failure and murky conditions curtailing action on every day of the match.
Mahmudullah, after posting a maiden half-century, couldn’t rally around the tail, and Bangladesh squandered the advantage that the 108-run seventh-wicket stand had secured them. In two overs after tea, Bangladesh lost the two remaining batsmen meekly, falling one short of India’s first-innings total, and giving them close to two hours to build up a lead.
West India’s Kieron Adrian Pollard became the most expensive purchase of the Indian Premier League player auction in Mumbai while former Rajasthan Royals player Mohammed Kaif was sold to Kings XI Punjab for $250,000 to conclude the event.
Bangladesh’s collapse, like India’s, started in the 15th over. India lost three wickets for six runs, Bangladesh lost three for five. India had 79 runs on the board before their collapse, Bangladesh 59. India continued collapsing, bad light granted Bangladesh stay orders. In fact the murky conditions allowed only 24.5 overs of play in the whole day, which means 90.1 overs have been lost on the first two days.