Bangladesh avoid innings defeat

Well, this is one area where Bangladesh has found itself doing in the recent past. Bangladesh despite long the test series with a whitewash, irrespective of whether it is played at home or outside, they are found to give their opposition a tough fight. This was evident from the fact that they despite losing both the test matches against India last month never had an innings defeat whatsoever. This was more so after their series whitewash over West Indies which saw Bangladesh notching their first test series win. That was also the 1^st time Bangladesh had a test win against a team other than Zimbabwe.

However, every time Bangladesh go out to play test cricket, they are aided by the opposition who at most of the times take Bangladesh for granted and end up paying the price which is the difference between an innings win and a just win. This is also the difference between a comfortable win and a gasping win. And, this time as well the situation was no different when New Zealand, after being put into bat by Bangladesh ended their first day's play with just over 250 on the board. Luckily, as it always happens McCullum and Guptill fought back before it would have been all over for NZ.

However, if the 3^rd day's play is considered, once again New Zealand will have to curse themselves for being at such a bad situation when Bangladeshi batsmen scored runs at will and not only put up a total in excess of 400 but also maintained a run rate in excess of 4 an over, which is a pretty decent one as far the standard of test cricket is considered. There was also a Bangladeshi batsmen in Mahmudullah who scored 115 runs. Bangladesh had put up a score greater than what the Kiwi batsmen could with the loss of 5 wickets. By the time the 5th wicket for Bangladesh was down, the scoreboard read 179 which is greater than 158 that NZ could manage.

This would not have been what the New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori would have been looking for after his team put up 553 runs on the board. All Vettori would have wanted is to bowl out Bangladesh for a score less than 200 and impose a follow-on and get them out soon once again so that the match can be finished with a day to spare. Can anyone of you believe it- it was a number 8 batsmen in Mahmudullah who put up a century and took his team to a commanding total as far as the standards of test cricket in Bangladesh is considered.