Bangladesh hope that a miracle will help them turn their fate against Pakistan in the second Test match after a dismal day at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Thursday. Tigers are in dire straits in the series deciding second Test as the visitors are comfortably placed when the stumps were drawn in the second day. After putting 557-8 declared in their first innings, Pakistan rubbed salt in the wounds by engineering a collapse of the Tigers leaving them stranded at 107-5.
Bangladesh are trailing by 450 runs and need 251 more runs to avoid follow-on that looks all but certain unless they come up with a similar effort.
In the opening Test match Bangladesh were in similar condition as they were trailing by 296 runs in their second innings before they registered a brilliant come back to draw the match.
Opener Imrul Kayes, a major contributor in the second innings effort in Khulna, though failed to come up in equal proportion still took heart from the fact of the opening Test match.
‘Two of us [Imrul and Tamim] took the team to a good position in the last match, from a similar position,’ Imrul told reporters at SBNS on Thursday.
‘We have Soumya[Sarkar] to come and Sakib[al Hasan] still at the crease,’ said Imrul.
‘Sakib[al Hasan] is a big player and if he and Soumya can put together a good partnership, we can reach a good position,’ he said, referring to the unbeaten batsman Sakib, who will resume his innings on the third day at 14.
‘We still have the second innings. We came into a good position from the back-foot in the last match,’ he said.
‘As a top-order we failed in this innings. But if we can get set in the second innings, we can make an even bigger comeback,’ he said.
Imrul said that they faced some tough bowling from the opponents but regretted the leg-before decision of Tamim Iqbal that changed the course of the game.
Tamim was nailed by Junaid Khan with a delivery that curved in and struck above the knee roll and though looked like the ball was sliding down, umpire Paul Reiffel thought it otherwise.
Tamim asked for a review which turned into an unsuccessful one as projections showed the ball was shaving the leg stump.
‘They bowled well and with discipline,’ said Imrul.
‘The match situation would have been different had it not been the umpire’s call in Tamim’s dismissal.
‘But we can’t do anything about what has happened. We just have to look forward,’ he said.
‘Our first target will be to avoid the follow-on and see how far we can go from there,’ he said.
Imrul said that the decision to bowl first backfired because they lost Shahadat Hossain due to injury.
The decision was widely criticised as Pakistan batsmen toiled with the host bowlers.
Shahadat bowled only two deliveries and sustained injury in the lunch break that ruled him out from the game.
‘We have an experienced captain who understands the game well. We have coaches and a team management.
‘There was something in the wicket on the first day. It was our bad luck that Rajib [Shahadat] got injured. We were playing with three pace bowlers, Imrul said, pointing out the role of Soumya Sarkar as third seamer.
‘We had two catches taken which were no-balls,’ he said, regretting about the two dismissals which were ruled out for overstepping.
‘If we could have properly used the conditions, they wouldn’t have scored so many runs,’ he said.
-With New Age input
