Most of the batsmen got a useful batting practice as Bangladesh made a positive start in their three-day warm-up match against an Invitation XI at Willowmoore Park in Benoni on Thursday.
Skipper Mushfiqur Rahim, Mominul Haque, Sabbir Rahman struck fifties but most importantly two out-of-form batsmen Soumya Sarkar and Imrul Kayes managed to spend a decent time in the middle to lift their confidence.
The Tigers declared their first innings with 306-7 in 74.1 overs before the home side reached 21-1 in 5.3 overs when stumps were drawn on the opening day.
Bangladesh suffered a scare at the start of the game as in-form opener Tamim Iqbal pulled his muscles in the fifth over and was forced to leave the ground scoring five runs off 13 balls.
A Bangladesh media representative confirmed that Tamim was ‘doing okay’, though he insisted that further investigation would be carried out to know the extent of damage.
Soumya and embattled Imrul added 73 runs for the second wicket before Imrul departed for 34 runs. Soumya soon followed him with 43 to waste all the hard-work he did at the start of innings.
Mushfiq and Mominul then put 119 runs for the fourth wicket in a quick succession.
Mominul was more aggressive than his skipper and scored 68 runs off 73 balls with nine fours before he was caught behind.
Bangladesh suddenly collapsed from 211-3 to 220-6 as left-arm medium fast bowler Micheal Cohen took four wickets in the space of seven balls to derail their innings.
The 19-year old got rid of Mominul and Mahmudullah (0) in successive deliveries before he took the wickets of Mushfiq (63) and Liton Das (0).
Mushfiq hit 63 runs off 85 deliveries with eight boundaries before becoming another victim of the youngster.
Sabbir, who scored an unbeaten 58, added 52 with Mehedi Hasan (18) to stem the rot.
-With New Age input
