Pujara, Iyer dig in after Pant's fightback

Chattogram, December 14

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Cheteshwar Pujara injected a fresh lease of life into his uncertain international future with a dogged 90 while Shreyas Iyer enjoyed a reprieve to remain unbeaten on 82 in India’s underwhelming opening day score of 278/6 against Bangladesh in the first Test.

Pujara missed out on a Test hundred as he was bowled by a beauty from left-arm spinner Taijul Islam (3/84) but not before seeing India out of danger with a 149-run fifth-wicket stand with Iyer.

Mehidy Hasan Miraz (2/71) dismissed Axar Patel off the last delivery of the day to wrest the initiative back for the hosts who would like to restrict India around 300 on a track that wasn’t bad for batting.

Credit should also be given to Rishabh Pant (46 off 45 balls) whose counterattacking knock was of immense value after skipper KL Rahul (22), Shubman Gill (20) and Virat Kohli (1) were dismissed cheaply within the first 90 minutes of play. Till Pant was at the crease, it seemed like he was batting on a different track.

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 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 and negate the advantage that India had gained after the fall of three wickets. — PTI

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