Tea Bangladesh 201 for 3 (Shanto 101, Mominul 64*, Abbas 1-37) vs Pakistan

The afternoon saw the pair merely pick up where they left off in the morning, almost completely unencumbered by any Pakistan bowler, seam or spin. The early movement Pakistan’s quicker bowlers got off the surface had all but evaporated, and with no genuine speed in Pakistan’s pace batter, there was little for two set batters to fear.

After a pair of maidens to kick the session off, Bangladesh hurried the scoring rate along, a boundary from Shanto off Abbas getting the scoreboard running. Masood rotated his bowlers fervently, with all five featuring in the session at some point or other. But Bangladesh milked the spinners, with Shanto especially belligerent against Noman Ali, unafraid of using his feet and in supreme control when going over cover or mid-off. It was in that cover region that he threaded the gap which fetched his milestone-reaching boundary, celebrating getting to his ninth hundred with a gallop into the air and a pump of his fists.

However, that delight would turn into anguish the very next delivery. Mohammad Abbas coming around the wicket with Rizwan standing up to pin him, found some tail back in that beat Shanto’s inside edge to hit him on the knee roll. The umpire initially ruled against Pakistan on height, but Hawkeye found it to be hitting the top of middle.

Meanwhile, Mominul deployed the late cut to canny effectiveness against the quicker bowlers time and again, toying with the field Masood set, no matter how novel or unconventional. He was, for much of the session, content to take a backseat to his more freescoring captain, comfortably absorbing any pressure Pakistan were trying to put the hosts under.

After Shan Masood won the toss and opted to put the hosts in on a green-top wicket, that decision looked to have paid off early after Bangladesh stumbled to 31 for two, but an unbeaten half-century stand between Haque and Shanto guided their side out of immediate trouble, bringing up the team 100 before lunch.

This was billed as a series that would not rely on spin bowling to the extent it has come to be expected in Bangladesh. A look at the surface convinced both sides, too, with each playing just the one specialist spinner and three seamers. It was evident both captains would rather have bowled first to have a first crack at a wicket that had seen a generous coating of grass left on it.

Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Abbas made decent use of those conditions. The first two balls of the Test went for two boundaries, but the visitors pulled things back over the next hour. Off the first ball of his fourth over, Shaheen probed the fourth stump channel to draw a poke from Mahmudul Hasan Joy to draw first blood. Abbas was perhaps a touch unlucky not to find himself among the wickets earlier, but it set the stage for Hasan Ali to find a bit of nip and coax an edge Salman Agha pouched in the slips.

The danger signs were flashing in neon for Bangladesh at that point, but Mominul and Shanto calmed proceedings over the next few overs. While the scoring rate was sluggish, they began to take the sting out of the attack. Pakistan will rue one golden missed chance in the slips, when a Mominul edge was caught up between Salman Agha and debutant Abdullah Fazal, and went to ground.

In the final 45 minutes before drinks, as conditions eased and the batters settled, the runs began to flow. Afridi, who bowled nine overs in the session, saw his potency fade away towards the backend, with Bangladesh milking nine runs in each of the first two overs of his second spell. Shanto, in particular, would become much more expressive with his shotmaking, opening up his body and driving expansively through the offside against the pacers.

It would become the start of an enormous partnership that put Bangladesh in a commanding position at tea, albeit one ever so slightly weakened by Abbas’s late blow.