Hosts turn around on pace trio
Dailystarnews.com - Sports Reporter from Chittagong

Young pacemen Taposh Baishya and Talha Jubair bowled their hearts out to dismiss the West Indies for 296 on the second day of the second and final Coca-Cola Test at the MA Aziz Stadium yesterday.

The lion-hearted duo put up a rare exhibition of quality seam bowling in association with experienced left-arm paceman Monjurul Islam.

They shared seven wickets to restrict the visitors to the lowest total in an innings by any opposing team against Bangladesh since they were granted the Test status in June 2000. The previous lowest score was 373 by Sri Lanka in the second Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground in Colombo last summer.

In probably their second best day since Bangladesh's baptism against India, the opening pair of Al-Shahriar and Hannan Sarker did not let the good work of the bowlers go in vain.
They put on 40 runs before bad light stopped play with seven overs left in the day. Al-Shahriar mixed caution with aggression to score 21 while his partner Hannan was batting on 12.

They will start day three still 62 runs behind and the home crowd will expect nothing less than a similar approach as their 55-minute occupation of the crease so far.

The play begins at 9:06am today, 24 minutes earlier than scheduled to make up for the time lost.

Taposh was the pick of the three seamers finishing with a career-best 4-72.

The lively Talha took two wickets for 58 runs and Monjurul, who justified the inclusion of a third paceman in the team, picking up the wicket of danger man Ramnaresh Sarwan.

Although the visitors, resuming the day on 38 for one in reply to Bangladesh's first innings total of 194, added 258 runs it could have been a different story had West Indies captain Ridley Jacobs and Daren Ganga not put on a valuable 99 runs for the sixth wicket.

The tourists really faced the music against a fired-up 19-year-old Talh who had started the West Indies top-order slide dismissing opener Chris Gayle. The left-handed Gayle was beaten all ends up by a beauty of a delivery from the right-arm paceman that held its line after pitching on the off-stump and nipped the bails.

Bowling with venom Talha also dismissed Marlon Samuels for 31 after Monjurul had found the edge of Sarwan's gloves behind the wicket to Khaled Mashud.

Mashud also took a brilliant catch down the leg side to remove Shivnarine Chanderpaul reducing the West Indies to 127-5.

Expectations of a remarkable turnaround then rose, but the left-right combination of Jacobs and Ganga spared the visitors the embarrassment of scoring less than the hosts.

Ganga top-scored with 63. The Trinidad right-hander was looking confident until he tried to loft off-spinner Sanwar Hossain out of the ground but ended up offering a simple catch at long on to Taposh.

Jacobs scored a captain's knock off 59 before his opposite number Mashud, diving full length to his left, took an outstanding catch.

The bowlers were backed up by some good fielding. Mohammad Ashraful sprinted from the cover point to run out Vasbert Drakes with a direct hit at the bowler's end.

The only disappointment was Habibul Bashar and Enamul Hoque's amateurish presence in the slips. Bashar let off Jacobs in his 40s and Enamul floored Gayle at third slip early in the morning. But most importantly Bashar's peculiar stance exposed the fact that he lacked the basics to be placed in such a specialised position.

Earlier on Monday, Bangladesh, after winning the toss, were all out for 194 in 63.1 overs. Middle-order batsman Sanwar Hossain, who came in place of Aminul Islam, scored highest 36 followed by Khaled Mashud who added 32.

Al-Shahriar (25) and young sensation Ashraful (28) were the other notable run-getters.

Pedro Collins and Daren Powell took three wickets each while Vasbert Drakes and Jermaine Lawson shared the remaining four wickets.

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