Related Links : Aus in Bangladesh : Scorecard
The Australians were a completely different unit at Chittagong today compared to what they were at Fatullah during the 1st Test. From Ball 1 they meant business and the motto was to wrap up the Test Match as quickly as possible. And Day 1 they bundled out Bangladesh for a paltry 197 and then knocked off 68 runs with the loss of Matthew Hayden who was out chipping the ball straight to deep mid wicket. Rafique was the wicket taker.
The day began with Bangladesh winning the toss and electing to bat first and this time the Aussies were charged up on all cylinders. Jason Gillespie started the downfall by removing three wickets in his first spell and that included last match heroes Shahariar Nafees and skipper Habibul Bashar. Australia in this match were playing with as many as three specialist spinners and that included Debutant off spinner Dan Cullen. Out of those three wickets that Gillespie took, two of them were gifted by the Bangladesh batsmen who played reckless shots. Nafees played his flick shot off the backfoot in the air and Bashar played a flashing drive to a ball that wasn’t there to be driven. The other wicket of Gillespie was through an lbw as he wrapped Javed Omar right in front of the stumps with his indipper. Bangladesh lost one more wicket in the 1st session that of Mohammad Ashraful who gave catching practice to the man at slips to a short and a big turning leg break from Shane Warne.
Bangladesh were in a very bad position of getting bowled out cheaply and that’s when Rajin Saleh and Aftab Ahmed rallied around each other to put up a nice partnership for the 5th wicket. Aftab also played a terrific lofted shot off Shane Warne for a six over the bowler’s head. The partnership reached 50 runs when Saleh got a boundary on the legside off Warne to also get to his fifty. Aftab’s innings had a controversial end as it was a result of Ricky Ponting pressurizing Umpire Ian Howell to review the TV Umpire Mahbubur Rehman’s decision after pressing the green button. Aftab who was looking to work Warne’s full toss onto the onside got the ball to hit his toe after which the ball scooped up and Gilchrist took the catch. More than 5 minutes were spent by the 3rd Umpire in checking the TV Replays following which he pressed the green light. Ponting clearly looked to have crossed the limits as he was arguing his cause to Ian Howell who one thought came under pressure to give that out.
Once Saleh was out clean bowled by a MacGill flipper, Bangladesh’s hopes of crossing 200 runs diminished. MacGill infact bowled very intelligently bowling rank long hops with his leg breaks intentionally and got Saleh to pull him for a few boundaries. His flipper was set up beautifully as Rajin Saleh thinking that it was another hit me ball went for a pull shot and got his stumps castled. After Saleh’s exit, Khaled Mashud kept one end safe and gathered as many runs as he could. For Australia Jason Gillespie, Warne and MacGill picked up three wickets each and Dan Cullen the debutant chipped in with a wicket as well.
The Australians had to bat out 24 overs which they did losing Hayden. Phil Jaques looks good to score a big one on Day 2 and he has Jason Gillespie the night watchman for company. For Bangladesh, their hopes of competing in this match rest on the shoulders of Mohammad Rafique who looks the only bowler to bother the Aussies so far. The track does look good for the spinners not so for the pace bowlers especially the two Bangladesh pacers Mashrafe Mortaza and Shahadat Hossain who looked very flat.