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May 21, 2007 (Link to Scorecard)

Bangladeshi lower order batsmen Mashrafe Mortaza and Shahadat Hossain have spoilt India's party at Chittagong. The fourth day's play of the first Test looked to go extremely well for India and a follow on was looking inevitable, but for a 77-run partnership between the two Bangladeshi fast bowlers. The follow on was avoided by the Tigers and India were forced to bat again. The visitors ended the day's play at a lead of 193 having lost two second innings wickets. Young Mortaza came up with a maiden half century at the Test Level.

Rahul Dravid's team have a tough job on their hand to enforce a victory. They need to get to the safety zone before they can declare their innings and set a target. Then there is the need to take 10 Bangladeshi wickets. Rahul Dravid was unlucky today, he was caught brilliantly by a diving Rajin Saleh, who had taken a catch in thin air. But more than that Rahul Dravid was extremely unlucky to lose the services of his ace bowler Anil Kumble, who was down and out with high fever. India decided to resume their first innings after play had started 30 minutes late. The idea of getting quick runs before a declaration vanished as they lost the wicket of Dhoni. The innings was declared at 387 for 8 with Dhoni not getting a single run today. Mortaza finished with 4 for 97 while Shahadat had good figures of 3 for 76.

R.P.Singh surprised everyone by leading the Indian bowling attack with the inroads. He was lucky to get the wicket of Javed Omar, trapped infront but to a delivery that pitched marginally outside leg. RP Singh was gifted another wicket when the Bangladeshi Skipper Habibul Bashar played an atrocious cut shot to be safely taken by Tendulkar at first slip. Bangladesh were at 20 for 2 and had to go to lunch at 49 for 3 which came a few minutes early because of a passing shower. Shahriar Nafees, the opening batsman was the third to be dismissed, driving needlessly to be taken by Tendulkar at first slip off Zaheer. Nafees by then was looking positive with his 32. Fortunately, play started on time after the lunch break. RP Singh was reintroduced into the attack after the break and he gave an important breakthrough by forcing Ashraful to fend a short delivery to gully. It was another outstanding catch, this one from Dinesh Karthik flying to his left. At 58 for 4, India knew they could end the Bangladeshi first innings soon enough.

The afternoon session was not going India's way though with debutant Saqibul Hasan putting up a good fight with Rajin Saleh. The two batsmen batted solidly together for an hour or so before Saqibul played a rising delivery from VRV Singh onto his stumps ending the 56-run stand. Saqibul got 27. Saleh followed him soon by cutting Ramesh Powar into Ganguly's hands to depart at a personal score of 41 after facing 83 balls. Umpire Harper helped VRV Singh and India get their next wicket as he gave Khaled Mashud lbw to a yorker that seemed to have hit the bat before hitting the toe, it was also a delivery that was clearly sliding down leg. The score was now 122 for 7, still 66 to avoid the follow on. Rafique came up with his usual fireworks, he got a couple of boundaries before getting stumped by Dhoni off Powar. The next partnership was the one that caused all the headaches for the Indian team. The three fast bowlers that Dravid had looked predictable while Powar was only relying on flight. That allowed the big hitting Mortaza and Shahadat to believe that they could tackle the bowling. It was only after 18 overs that India could dislodge this pair which was through a Tendulkar googly in the last session. Shahadat made 31 with 5 fours having survived 55 balls. Mortaza was cleaned up by a yorker from VRV and the innings finally came to an end at 238 in 68.2 overs with the deficit at 150. Mortaza got 79 from just 91 balls with 7 fours and 3 sixes.

India had to reluctantly come out to bat again and they were onto the backfoot by Shahadat Hossain's superb spell. He first dismissed Wasim Jaffer, who had bagged a pair. Jaffer avoided the King pair by playing three balls. India lost Jaffer through an attempted pull shot in the third ball of their innings. Dravid was gone in the 5th over to the same bowler courtesy of a stunning acrobatic catch from little man Rajin Saleh at square leg, who took the catch flying in the air. India managed to put the loss of these two wickets behind through Dinesh Karthik and Sachin Tendulkar. Both batsmen took the score to 44 for 2 in 14 overs at the close of play. Tendulkar has looked positive in his 24 from 36 balls while Karthik has been there on 15. The lead for India is 193 and the idea might be to set a target of 300 and look to have 75 overs to bowl at Bangladesh. India would be hoping that their trump card Anil Kumble is just fit enough to bowl tomorrow!

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