At the end of this test match, there will be many regrets, but at least after the end of Day Three, we, fans are proud of our team. Go Bangladesh Go!
The batting of Bangladesh started on Day Two, and it was a bit disappointing to lose the wicket of relatively experienced opener Hannan Sarkar. However, his partner, although experienced at playing cricket for more years than Hannan Sarkar, but least experienced at the international stage, Shahriar Hossain played some nice shots on Day Two.
On Day Three, both Shahriar Hossain and Tapash Baisya was playing dangerously, but knowing their weaknesses pretty well, we should not be disappointed at their performance at the top of the order. In fact, Shahriar Hossain, who is used to playing little seamers like Sean Ervine back at home, played some very good shots against his bowling. We kind of wondered what could have happened for Bangladesh if Shahriar had continued to play International cricket in between the years 2001 and 2003.
Captain Habibul Bashar played a bad shot, and gave his critics a chance to get him off the captancy job.
Rajin Saleh and Mohammad Ashraful then played really well, to save Bangladesh from what could have been a disaster at 77 for 4. The doubters on Rajin Saleh's abilities and performance were silenced by his performance today.
A huge cheer must go on to Mohammad Ashraful. If he continues his good form, then may be at last the investment that was put upon him over the years for letting him play at the International stage for Bangladesh after that maiden debut century against Sri Lanka is paying its dividends. There were a lot of doubts about his abilities as a player, too, as to whether he could return to the Internatinal stage and score a test match hundred.
The all-rounders, Mushfiqur Rahman and Monjurul Islam Rana have done well. They had justified Whatmore's decision to let them play in test cricket. With only five specialist batsman in Sarkar, Shahriar, Bashar, Saleh, Ashraful, and the two all-rounders Mushfiqur and Monjurul Rana in the side, a total of less than three hundred could have been very frustrating from the team point-of-view.
In the end, even Monjurul Islam with a batting average of just over three from around 16 tests, batted well.
Things could have been a lot better if some of the specialist batsman had not thrown their wickets away, but at the moment, the most positive thing to come out from this match is letting us forget about the weaknesses. It was after a lo-o-o-o-ong time that Bangladesh past the total of 300, almost after two years, if we ignore the 361 against Pakistan in which match Bangladesh was bowled out for 90 odd runs in the second innings. To be exact, this is the fourth highest total after the 400 against India during the inaugural test, 361 against Pakistan last year, 326 against Sri Lanka in the maiden test match between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In addition, this is the highest total against Zimbabwe either at home or away. So even though the bowlers and fielders could not do their job properly on a really good batting strip, the batsman have done better than during the last four tests. Still, there are two more days left of this match, and from the conditions and the situation of the match, it is going to be a pretty difficult job to save this match for Bangladesh. Lets just hope for the best. |