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Bangladesh are in a sorry state, losing half their side for nothing compared to India’s Himalayan first innings total of 600 plus. The second day’s play at the Shere Bangla National Stadium was like a fight between an elephant and an ant. The homeside are 58 for 5 after India had finally declared their innings at 610 for 3 with four batsmen cracking centuries. Zaheer Khan was too hostile for the Bangla top order as the left armer took three wickets without much sweat.
An innings defeat is staring at Habibul Bashar’s team in what is supposed to be Dav Whatmore’s farewell match. Having to bat just the 25 overs before stumps, Javed Omar gave the worst ever start, poking nervously at an away going delivery from Zaheer Khan in the first ball of the innings. A beautiful catch was taken at third slip by Dinesh Karthik. The new ball was shared by RP Singh, who removed Habibul Bashar with a magical delivery. Bashar was nicely set up by a short and wide delivery which was cracked through the vacant cover region. A little while after that RP Singh angled one into the right hander and got it to hold its line and also get it to lift a lot to make Bashar edge that behind the stumps.
It looked as if there was going to be a wicket going down in each over. This time there was the bonus from Zaheer, not just one, but two wickets fell down in consecutive balls. Shahriar Nafees, the left hander was beaten in the length, going onto the backfoot to a full length delivery. He was cleaned up by a delivery that angled in and then left a fraction to disturb the offstump which he left uncovered. The very next ball Ashraful got a difficult incoming delivery that skidded and kept low to have him dead in front. Zaheer was on a hat-trick but he spoilt it with an overpitched delivery that was smashed for a boundary by Saqibul. Bangladesh could have lost two more wickets but for two dropped catches from Dinesh Karthik in the slips giving a life each for Saqibul and Rajin Saleh.
Rajin Saleh was struck on his elbow trying to take evasive action to Zaheer. Saleh felt the pain for a little while before resuming his tiny fight along with Saqibul. Anil Kumble was introduced in the 11th over, he almost got Saleh infront of the stumps but for an inside edge. But three balls later with a bit of extra bounce, Kumble forced Saleh to get an inside edge onto his pads that was taken by Wasim Jaffer at short leg. Saleh survived 29 balls getting 20 runs. That was the only other wicket that India were going to get in the remaining part of play. Nine overs were lost in the day’s play because of the slow over rate. Saqibul Hasan remained unbeaten on 30 with 4 fours. He was also dropped by a forward diving Ramesh Powar at point. India also used their debutant Ishant Sharma, who was quite decent in his spell of 3 overs. The tall Ishant mixed it up by bowling the short of length deliveries with the full length deliveries. His fastest ball was over 140kmph. For Bangladesh, Khaled Mashud is still to bat as he was off the field owing to cramps.
During the morning session, Rahul Dravid brought up his 24th hundred. His was the first wicket to go down as Dravid looked to go inside out over covers to be taken at point. The score was 408 with the homeside taking as many as 108.2 overs to find their first breakthrough. Dravid got 129 from 176 with 15 fours and a six. After Dravid’s exit, Dinesh Karthik got promoted and the young man got his maiden century just at the stroke of lunch. India went into lunch at 442 for 1 with 116 runs coming in the 27 overs of the morning session. Tendulkar after lunch collected his runs too slowly while Dinesh Karthik looking to accelerate got out once again miscuing a pull shot off Mortaza. India lost Karthik at 493 in the 130th over with the right hander making 129 from 212 with 16 fours. He was 82 retired hurt yesterday. Sourav Ganguly was the only one who was going to miss out in scoring big, he cut Rafique into the emergency wicket keeper Rajin Saleh’s hands to be out for 15. India went on even after Tea that too after Sachin Tendulkar had got his 37th hundred. After Tea, 82 runs were scored in 16 overs with Mahendra Singh Dhoni scoring a blistering 51 from 50 with 3 fours and 4 sixes. Tendulkar got 122 from 226 balls with 8 fours and a six. India had piled up 610 for 3 in 153 overs.
Looking at the way, Bangladesh have batted so far, Day three could be the end of the test match with the follow on expected to be enforced. Otherwise the fourth day’s play could see the end of the tour.