Pakistan opener Taufiq Umar did not rule out the chance of a win in the second Test match against Bangladesh after his seventh Test century brought them close to a first innings lead on Monday.
The left-hander scored 130 from 256 balls to help Pakistan reach 292-3 at the end of fog-shortened third day in reply to Bangladesh’s 338 all out in the first innings.
The approach of Pakistan, however, surprised many as their batsmen did not take any risk to accelerate the run rate implying that they were thinking of a draw, but the opener differed.
‘I still believe we have a chance. We have a world class bowling attack and if we get two to three sessions we can take the challenge,’ Taufiq told reporters at a news conference.
‘We have bowlers who could bowl out any side if they get one to two sessions. If we can take a good lead we will try our level best to win this game,’ said Taufiq.
Weather, however, will play a key part in Pakistan’s charge as the match has already lost a significant numbers of overs to fog and bad light. The start of the play was delayed for the third consecutive day and things are unlikely to improve in the remaining two days.
‘We still have got two days to go but it all depends on weather,’ said Taufiq. If it is alright then we have world class bowlers and if we need 10 wickets then we will bowl on good areas,’ he added.
Taufiq also defended their gameplan and believed it was the best thing they could have done in this condition despite the flat nature of the pitch.
‘I think we were on the back-foot and we would have been in deeper trouble had we lost two or three early wickets,’ he said. ‘We wanted to get closer to the runs and then see how it stands.’
‘We wanted to stay at the wicket and wait for the bad deliveries. I think we were quite successful. The planning was just to play your normal game and wait for the bad ball.
‘Now we are in a good position and we will accelerate tomorrow and see how the things are going,’ said Taufiq, the highest run-getter for Pakistan in 2011 with 828 that included two centuries and a double century.
-With New Age input
