India barely managed to snatch victory in a tensely fought on-field battle against the Bangladeshi spinners in the second and final Test which was played in Dhaka on day four. Bangladesh almost had India under pressure, but ultimately the better side prevailed.
Indian management misread the pitch at the start resulting in them dropping the Player of the Match from the first Test Kuldeep Yadav and going with an extra pacer in Jaydev Unadkat, who made his Test comeback after 12 years and 118 Test matches.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh went in with three spinners including Shakib Al Hasan who bowled quite a lot in this Test.
Mominul Haque’s 84 paved the way for Bangladesh’s first innings score of 227 while Umesh Yadav and R Ashwin starred with four wickets each.
In reply, Rishabh Pant’s 93 and Shreyas Iyer’s 87 were the reason India made 314 runs in their first do and took a lead of 87 runs. Shakib Al Hasan and Taijul Islam picked four wickets each.
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Bangladesh knew they had to post a good total with a lead big enough to trouble the Indian batters on a crumbling Dhaka pitch and Litton Das’ 73 led them to 231 runs despite the best effort of Indian bowlers to keep the scoring in check as Akshar Patel took 3 wickets, while Ashwin and Siraj took 2.
India was set 145 runs to win and at the end of day 3, were reduced to 45/4, which after the first session on day 4 became 74/7.
But 42* from Ashwin and 29* from Shreyas was enough for India to attain the target with 3 wickets in hand, despite Mehidy Hasan’s fifer. India won the match and the series 2-0.
Speaking during the post-match presentation, India captain KL Rahul admitted to being tense in the dressing room when the chase was on.
He said: “You trust the guys in the middle (during such situations). We've played enough cricket to realize that someone will put their hand up to win us the game. But I'm not going to lie, there was a lot of tension in the dressing room. It was a tough wicket to bat on, they put us under pressure in both innings. It was a new-ball surface to some extent, once ball got softer, it was easier to score runs. It was a matter of who plays the new ball better.
We did lose a few more wickets than ideal (in the chase) but we got the job done. Will take the win. That (bowling attack) has been the case for the last many years now. Wherever we've gone overseas in recent years, we have done the job.”
He lauded the Indian bowlers in the series and said that he was happy with India's bowling depth.
“Happy with our bowling depth in the last 6-7 years. The series wins say a lot about how well we've groomed our pace attack. Ashwin and Axar have also done really well. Umesh put his hands up, Jaydev came in after a long time but bowled phenomenally well and probably deserved more wickets than he got. But the pressure helped Ashwin and Axar capitalize,” Rahul signed off.
Ashwin was given the Player of the Match award while Cheteshwar Pujara got the Player of the Series award.
(Sony Sports inputs)
