India vs Bangladesh, Indore Test-2019 – The Complete Story, Day 1- Momimul Haq will forever regret his decision of choosing to bat against the Indian bowlers on the first day of the Indore Test. He asked Indians to bowl first and failed to even bat for full 60 overs.
Bangladesh lose track from the beginning
Bangladesh openers surrendered pretty soon and the visitors lost two openers on the same score. The skipper walked in with score 12/1 on board and saw it becoming 12/2 from one end.
He did what could be done best at that moment. He just played normal Test-match cricket and was able to stabilize the innings for a while. Thanks to his initiative along with Mohammad Mithun (13) and Mushfiqur Rahim (43), Bangladesh looked much better with 99/4.
What the openers failed to do, the middle order batsmen of Bangladesh cricket team did put efforts for the same. They started to build up partnerships- small ones but valuable ones. Rahim was there till 54th over and took the team score to 140.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh lost Mahmudullah for 10 runs and then Liton Das put his own fight for a couple of overs. He could add pretty quite 21 runs that did help Bangladesh a lot. Post Mushfiqur it was a matter of time as Bangladesh was bundled up for just 150 runs on board.
Indian bowlers amaze yet again
Earlier it was the Indian batting that people used to wait for during India’s match. But time has changed. With a rock-solid bowling attack in the reserve, what the primary bowlers for India every time do on-field now is incredible. India vs Bangladesh match was no exception.
None of the Indian bowlers let Bangladesh batsmen collect runs easily. They made it really difficult for the Bangladesh batters to play shots, especially during the first two sessions. No wonder they were 140 for the loss of seven wickets at Tea and the fate of Bangladesh’s first innings was decided.
The first breakthrough came from Ishant Sharma who finished with two wickets by conceding only 20 runs in 12 over that included six maidens. Sharma’s bowling economy of 1.66 speaks for his performance. Umesh Yadav continued his good showing although he ended up as the most expensive bowler. His figures read 14.3-3-47-2. Ravichandran Ashwin also picked up two wickets.
Interestingly the most successful bowler of the day Mohammed Shami took three wickets but bowled the only wide delivery of the entire innings. Shami’s performance improved with the older ball. He picked up the highest scorer of the opponents along with the wickets of Mithun and Mehidy Hasan Miraz. Shami’s bowling figures finally read 13-5-27-3.
Ashwin’s record feat
Ashwin after dismissing Mominul Haque for 37 joined the elite league of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh and became only the third Indian bowler to have 250 scalps at home. Anil Kumble leads the list with 350 Test wickets in India and Harbhajan Singh took 265 wickets at home.
He claimed 250th scalps in his 42nd match at home and leveled the Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan followed by Anil Kumble who managed to achieve the feat in his 43rd match.
Overall, Ashwin is now the fourth leading wicket takers in India with 358 scalps to his name. Anil Kumble leads this chart as well with 619 wickets followed by Kapil Dev (434), Harbhajan Singh (417), and Zaheer Khan (311) in the second, third, and fifth spot respectively.
Indians even though they lost their in-form batsman Rohit Sharma in the 8th over of their innings, Mayank Agarwal was joined by Cheteshwar Pujara to send a strong message to Bangladesh dressing room. Both looked settled and by the end of the day developed a decent unbeaten partnership of 72 runs.
Agarwal is not out on 37 with Pujara being the attacking partner with 61-ball 43*. Indians are trailing by only 64 runs with nine wickets in hand. The aim would be to utilize this opportunity, put a mammoth total in the first innings for Bangladesh.