Pacers breathe fire, India on top

DOMINANT Shami claims three, while fellow quicks Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav take two each to pack off Bangladesh

INDORE: A mismatch was on the cards and so far it has gone according to the script. Bangladesh were bundled out for 150 soon after tea on Day One of their first Test against India at the Holkar Stadium here on Thursday and India are on course to extend their domination at home, at 86/1 with Cheteshwar Pujara on 43 and Mayank Agarwal on 37. The question now is whether Bangladesh’s misery will end in three days or four. Day Four is a Sunday and the association would have banked on some spike in gate sales. But going by Virat Kolhi’s intensity and the lack of it from Bangladesh, it seems India might land in Kolkata on Sunday itself.

Bangladesh’s positive intent ended with the toss. Mominul Haque opted to bat first on a wicket which had a fair sprinkling of green and had some life in it. It was a bold statement on captaincy debut: Bangladesh were ready to take India’s formidable and in-form three-pronged pace attack head on. The decision to bat was not based on the assumption that Bangladesh were hoping to make India bat last on a fifthday wicket. That was confirmed by the skipper after day’s play, but Haque did not really specify what prompted it. He took the blame and rued the timing of his own dismissal. R Ashwin though called Haque’s decision a “really brave” one.

Few would have actually thought that the opening Test of this two-match series between the best and the ninth Test teams in the world would go the distance, especially after South Africa failed to last that long in October. So, why Bangladesh chose to expose their depleted line-up, in the absence of Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan, to the best pace attack in the world remained a mystery. So did the visitors’ decision to not include left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman as the third seamer.

The story of Thursday’s morning session was that of ball beating the bat’s inside and outside edges, nudges going to third-man, pl ay and misses, dropped catches—one by the skipper hims e l f a n d o n e b y Aj i n k y a Rahane—63 runs and three wickets. In fact, 34 out of the first 50 runs came from behind the wicket. Bangladesh openers—the experienced Imrul Kayes, who has been regularly irregular in the squad since 2008, and young Shadman Islam—were pushed on to the backfoot early. And they stayed there, often failing to even edge the ball because of lack of footwork. Meanwhile, there was a close DRS call of leg-before

against Mohammad Mithun off Mohammad Shami, which went with the umpire’s call of impact outside off-stump.

Umesh Yadav got India the breakthrough. Kayes got a thick outside edge and the ball flew to gully where Rahane took a comfortable catch moving to his left. Ishant Sharma got Islam in the next over with a pitched up delivery that swung late, taking an edge of the left-hander’s bat to Wriddhiman Saha. It was the keeper’s 300th first class catch.

The ball was still rising when Saha caught it and throughout the day, the pitch gave enough evidence of its hardness. India’s slip fielders however may have misread it and stood a yard closer and that may have contributed to dropping as many as four catches in the cordon.

Rahane dropped three off Ashwin, though one was a tough as Haque had made some room to cut the off-spinner. The other two were regulation but Rahane misjudged the height on both occa