IND vs BAN, 1st Test: Led by Pujara and Iyer, India finish on 278/6 on Day 1; match hangs in balance
Powered by Cheteshwar Pujara's 90, Rishabh Pant's quickfire 46 and Shreyas Iyer's 82*, India finished Day 1 of the first Test vs Bangladesh with 278 runs on board at the loss of six wickets.
Pujara (90) missed out on a century but Iyer remained on course for his hundred as he was unbeaten on 82. Rishabh Pant's counterattacking 45-ball 46 helped India stabilise the innings following early blows. Axar Patel (13) was dismissed on the final ball of the day.
For Bangladesh, Taijul Islam (3/84) made the most impact with three wickets for 81 runs, while Khaled Ahmed (1/26) and Mehidy Hasan Miraz (2/71) were also among wickets.
India lost stand-in skipper KL Rahul (22), Shubman Gill (20) and Virat Kohli (1) in the morning session after opting to bat.
Honours were shared on the opening day with Islam emerging as the hero for Bangladesh and showing he has the potential to come out of the shadows of his more illustrious skipper Shakib Al Hasan. He bowled a couple of classical left-arm spinner's deliveries to get rid of Kohli in the first hour and Pujara in the final half hour to negate the advantage that India had gained after the fall of three wickets.
In case of Kohli, he tossed it up and bowled a fuller length as the batter went on the back-foot. The ball turned enough to hit him on the back-pad.
If Kohli ended up being plumb in front on the back-foot, Pujara presented a dead defence on the front-foot and saw the ball beat the outside edge of his bat to hit the off-stick. Iyer, for one, was lucky when he was beaten through the gate by Ebadot Hossain and the ball hit the stumps with the bail being disturbed from its groove but didn't fall.
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It is worth noting that the aggressive approach that Rahul spoke about ahead of the game was missing throughout the match.
India need to win both matches of the series to stay alive in the race for the World Test Championship final.
The pitch is already turning square with a lot of bounce, and the Indian spinners would be licking their fingers to have a go at the Bangladeshi batters. It would be interesting to see if Bangladesh can make short work of India tomorrow and come out to bat early.
(Inputs PTI)
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