Brendan Taylor rode his luck to score a century and put Zimbabwe in a comfortable position on the first day of the first Test against Bangladesh in Harare on Wednesday.
Taylor stayed unbeaten on 105, his second Test century against Bangladesh in consecutive matches, as Zimbabwe posted 217-4 at close on the first day despite a wobbly start to the game.
The Tigers had their poor fielding and luck to blame as three catches went down and some confident appeals were overlooked before a television replay gave Taylor a stunning reprieve.
Taylor had heaved left-arm spinner Enamul Haque Jr into the sky when he was batting on 35 but Shahriar Nafees dropped the catch agonisingly despite having enough time.
Taylor went on to add 127 runs with Malcolm Waller for the fourth wicket to bail out Zimbabwe from a potential danger before Rubel Hossain bowled Waller for 55 to break the resilient partnership.
Rubel thought he also had the wicket of
Taylor when he bowled the Zimbabwe captain on 102, but umpires preferred to see if he had bowled a no-ball. After several replays from different angles they declared it as a no-ball to give Taylor another lifeline.
Bangladesh’s poor luck began from the very first over when Shahriar dropped a straightforward catch, given by debutant opener Timycen Maruma off Robiul Islam, at slip.
It did not, however,
took the Tigers too much time to get their first breakthrough as Robiul produced a gem of a delivery to send the middle stump of Vusimuzi Sibanda cart-wheeling.
Sibanda, who scored 78 runs against Bangladesh in their previous Test, could manage just four this time.
Robiul tested the Zimbabwean batsmen with his swing in his opening spell and had a few confident appeals turned down before he had Maruma out lbw for 10 finally.
Zimbabwe could
score just 50 runs in the opening session at the expense of their opener and things did not look very promising after the lunch break either.
Taylor and Hamilton Masakadza were clearly struggling to keep the scoreboard ticking despite the Bangladeshi bowlers, especially Enamul Haque Jr, often fed them with some loose deliveries.
Enamul, however, produced some turns and defeated the batsmen with his deceptive flight to raise the prospect of taking a wicket on quite a few occasions. He was rewarded with the wicket of Masakadza, who edged the left-arm spinner at first slip to Mahmudullah to depart for 25.
After Shahriar missed the catch of Taylor off his bowling, Enamul was also unlucky not to get the wicket of Waller, who was dropped by Mohammad Ashraful at point on 21.
The twin misses took the momentum away from Bangladesh and gave Zimbabwe some breathing space which they used to return as the most satisfied team at the end of first day’s play.
brief scores
Stumps, Day 1
Zimbabwe 217-4 in 90 overs (B Taylor 105 not out, M Waller 55, H Maskadza 25; R Islam 2-56, R Hossain 1-42, E Haque Jr 1-76) v Bangladesh.
-With New Age input
