Taijul 10-for helps Tigers fight back

SYLHET. - TAIJUL Islam took his maiden 10-wicket haul in a Test match to keep Bangladesh in the game at stumps on Day 3 of the first Test against Zimbabwe at the Sylhet International Stadium.

The hosts were 26 for no loss in pursuit of 321 when bad light forced early stumps. At the start of the final session, Zimbabwe were in a position to take the game completely away from Bangladesh’’s grasp. However, the trio of Taijul, Nazmul Islam and Mehidy Hasan had other ideas as they tore through the lower order, with the visitors adding just 16 runs in the third session to end up with 181 in their second innings.

Wellington Masakadza was the first one to be dislodged; prised out lbw by Mehidy. Nazmul then took over by dismissing both Chakabva and Brandon Mavuta in a single over to leave the visiting side nine down. Tendai Chatara landed a couple of powerful blows before he became Taijul’’s 11th victim of the Test.

While chasing down a sizeable target, Bangladesh needed a solid start. The duo of Imrul Kayes and Liton Das played with a sense of purpose and also showed the required application to help the home side paddle through the tricky final session. Imrul had a scare or two, evidenced by the attempted drive he played off Chatara in the eighth over, but luckily for the opener, he eked out a thick edge and the ball raced through the slip cordon.

The Bangladesh camp would be pleased that they have all 10 wickets intact as they look to hunt down the substantial target on a track offering slow turn.

Earlier, Zimbabwe’’s skipper, Hamilton Masakadza, had led from the front with a steady 48 to push the lead past the 200-run mark. He also received support from Brendan Taylor (24) and Sean Williams (20).

However, at a crucial juncture of the match, the Zimbabwe captain tried to reverse sweep Mehidy and was trapped in front of middle and off-stump. It opened the floodgates for Taijul to run through the tourists’’ batting unit.

Taijul castled Sean Williams, with the left-handed batsman trying an ill-advised reverse sweep. The left-arm spinner followed it up by sending Peter Moor back to the hut in the same over. Raza, who just like Taylor took the aggressive route, was cleaned up by Taijul for 25. With the score reading 130 for 6, Chakabva and Wellington Masakadza joined forces to string together an alliance of 35 to keep the opposition spinners at bay until the Tea break.

In the final session, Bangladesh spinners, though, made short work of the rest of the batting order to give the home side a glimmer of hope of posting a victory.

Zimbabwe head coach Lalchand Rajput said that they are confident of winning the game and are banking on their spinners to do the required job on the fourth day.

Bangladesh were 26 for 0 after the end of the third day and will require another 295 runs to win the opening Test.

“It’’s always difficult to chase a total on the fourth day especially, and the last ball (an off break from Sikandar Raza that spun a bit) was very encouraging. So hopefully we’’ll try and bowl well tomorrow morning, and we’’ve got to take the catches.

“As you know, catches win matches, because there will be a lot of catchers around the bat. So hopefully we have a good fielding and bowling session tomorrow (today).

“We will be having a combination of medium pacers and spinners, but the bulk of the bowling will be done by the spinners, because we’’ve seen that the wicket is helping the spinners,’’’’ he said. “In the first innings, the seamers bowled really well, so we were hoping that we would get one or two wickets with the new ball. But that’’s not the case always, so we will have to bowl well tomorrow. There will be more emphasis on the spinners and hopefully the spinners will oblige. Now the Test match has been good so far, two more days to go, we have to try and bowl well and field well because such chances don’’t come very often. And if you look at the stats as well, teams have not chased more than 300 in the fourth innings,” he said.

Rajput conceded that he was eyeing his 21-year-old leg-spinning all-rounder, debutant Brandon Mavuta, to take the responsibility of doing bulk of the damage. “Legspinners are wicket-taking bowlers, but they give you loose balls as well. We are expecting that he will do the job for the team. He did bowl exceptionally well in South Africa in the one-dayers, though that’’s the one-day format. Hopefully he’’ll get that rhythm tomorrow because there are some odd balls that are bouncing, there is some turn, some are going straight and keeping low,’’’’ he said before adding that he would have liked Zimbabwe play more Test matches as that will help them get better prepared for challenges in these kind of situations.

‘’’’If you play more Tests, you come into these situations more often and you’’re mentally well prepared as well. Since we’’ve not been playing Test matches, we had a very good start to this Test match, still with a couple of days to go,’’’’ said Rajput. “Hopefully we finish off on a positive note. But I think they should play more and more Test matches, because Test matches show a lot of character and temperament, and are the real test of a cricketer,’’’’ he added.

Zimbabwe are playing their first Test this year in this series opener in Sylhet. After the next Test in Dhaka, Zimbabwe will only play their next Test against India in March 2019. Their last Test was against South Africa in December 2017. - Cricbuzz.