Indore: Mohammed Shami’s prodigious reverse swing and Ravichandran Ashwin’s guile broke the backbone of Bangladesh batting, reducing the visitors to 140 for seven at tea on day one of the first Test here Thursday.
Shami (3/27 in 11 overs) once again showed his mastery with the old ball removing opposition’s best bet Mushfiqur Rahim (43 off 105 balls) with a sharp incutter followed by a similar delivery that got rid of Mehidy Hasan Miraj (0).
Shami set up Mushfiqur with conventional outswingers and then got a 53 plus over old ball to jag back sharply, leaving the batsmen in a daze.
This was after a luckless Ravichandran Ashwin (2/43 in 16 overs) more than made up for ‘butter-fingered’ colleague Ajinkya Rahane by breaching through defences of opposition batsmen.
India’s slip fielding was below-par on the day with Ashwin paying the price for Rahane’s twin bloopers in the slip cordon that gave Rahim and Mahmudullah Riyad (10) reprieve.
This was after Bangladesh captain Mominul Haque (36) was let off by skipper Virat Kohli off Umesh Yadav in the first session.
However none of it proved too costly because of the superlative performance of the bowling unit.
The wily off-spinner decided to take the fielders out of equation in the post-lunch session. First he angled one to left-hander Mominul, who thought it will be a conventional off-break and decided to leave the delivery. To his horror, it came in with the angle to peg the off-stump back.
Mahmudullah was lucky when Rahane dropped a regulation catch at slips but ran out of it when a rank bad shot brought his downfall. The right-hander tried to sweep Ashwin from outside the off-stump and in the process was bowled round the legs leaving all three stumps exposed.
Earlier, in the first session, the fast bowlers made the ball talk on a helpful track.
The trio of Umesh Yadav (1/39 in 13 overs), Ishant Sharma (1/18 in 13 overs) and Shami made life difficult for the visiting team batsmen after skipper Kohli opted to bowl considering the greenish tinge on the 22-yard surface.
At the break, skipper Mominul Haque (22 batting, 56 balls) and the seasoned Mushfiqur Rahim (14 batting, 22 balls) were at the crease, having added 32 runs for the fourth wicket.
The pace unit, which has been on the top of its game over the last 22 months, bowled a probing line during the first spell and the disconcerting extra bounce made life difficult for the Bangladeshi batsmen.
PTI
