Dhaka — Bangladesh performed poorly in the opening day of Rawalpindi Test against hosts Pakistan as they tumbled for 233 in their first innings on Friday.
But left-handed top-order batsman Najmul Hossain Shanto said the team believe that they can come strong in the remaining part of the game.
Pakistan won the toss and sent Bangladesh to bat first. The visitors lost two early wickets and eventually capitulated for 233 in spite of having some strong partnerships in the middle which ended prematurely.
Five of Bangladeshi batsmen passed 25-run marks but only Mohammad Mithun scored a half-century.
“Despite losing two early wickets, I built a good partnership with Mominul. We should have done better. Mahmudullah, Mithun and Liton also did well. We believe we can come up with a strong performance in the second innings,” Shanto told the media after the play of day one.
There were a lot of movements during the first hour of day’s play. Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Abbas made it tough for the Bangladeshi batsmen to score runs in the wicket which looked more lethal before the game.
“Shaheen and Abbas were tremendous with the ball. They bowled relentlessly in the right areas. They forced batsmen to make mistakes. And at the same time, some of our batsmen have proven that the batting for a long time was not impossible in this wicket but we failed to do that,” Shanto said.
He said they would not lose sleep thinking about their batting failure and instead they are looking forward to displaying a good bowling effort to take some early wickets.
“We failed to do what we should have done on day one but we still believe that we can play better cricket in this game. We’re looking forward to taking some early wickets tomorrow and play with more patience in the second innings,” Shanto told the media in the post-day press conference.UNB
