Mirpur: Indian bowlers made a confident start on the third morning, getting four wickets as Bangladesh huffed and puffed their way to 71 for 4 at lunch in the second Test here Saturday.
The impressive Zakir Hasan (37 batting) fought well but Ravichandran Ashwin (1/26), Mohammed Siraj (1/21) and Jaydev Unadkat (1/11) were all in business while Axar Patel (1/2) was as dangerous as ever during the morning session.
Bangladesh are currently 16 runs short of making India bat again in the second innings.
First, Najmul Hossain Shanto (5) was trapped plumb in front by Ashwin to a ball that skidded and beat his defence.
It was the dangerous Mominul Haque (5) who then misjudged the length of a Siraj delivery, which was pitched on back of length and climbed up to take a faint nick into Rishabh Pant’s gloves.
Shakib Al Hasan (13) tried to drive a Jaydev Unadkat delivery. However, the ball was not on a fuller length and climbed a bit on the Bangladesh captain. The result was a simple catch to Shubman Gill at cover.
India pick up four wickets in the opening session on Day 3.#WTC23 | #BANvIND | https://t.co/ZTCALEDTqb pic.twitter.com/HKAs7UaPZM
— ICC (@ICC) December 24, 2022
It is the second time that Shakib has misjudged the length of deliveries and played cover drives to get out in this series.
Unadkat was brilliant in the morning as he got the extra bounce which created doubts in the minds of the batters on a regular basis. Shakib was fooled as Unadkat bowled three different lengths with the Bangladesh skipper not understanding which one was a drivable length.
Only Zakir tried to get under the bounce and hit him over third man for a boundary but the wily Rajkot man changed the length and beat the opener in a nice little duel.
The other Indian bowler who literally tormented the Bangladeshi batters was Axar as he got turn, bounce and also kept his lines straight enough to sow seeds of doubts in their minds.
The batters didn’t know whether to play for turn or straighter ones. Mushfiqur Rahim (9) thought he was defending one straight but it came in with an angle to catch him on the back-foot. Every alternate delivery in that over either turned away or came back in.
