It was the sort of morning that quick bowlers dream about: overcast skies, a green tinge and a new ball hard enough to squeak. Shaheen Shah Afridi and Hasan Ali used it well too, scuttling Bangladesh to 31 for 2 inside the first hour. By lunch, though, Najmul Hossain Shanto and Mominul Haque had dragged the hosts to a far healthier 101 for 2, an unbroken partnership worth 70 taking much of the shine off Pakistan’s early progress.
Pakistan skipper Shan Masood had no hesitation in bowling first after winning the toss. Both sides had read the strip the same way, packing three seamers and limiting themselves to a single specialist spinner. “You don’t often get this much grass in Dhaka,” Masood noted before play. “We wanted our quicks to have first crack.”
Afridi struck first, tempting Mahmudul Hasan Joy into a tentative push outside off that was safely pouched at second slip. Mohammad Abbas beat the bat often enough without reward, allowing Hasan to nip one back and have Shadman Islam caught smartly by Salman Agha. At 31 for 2, the neon warning lights were flashing for Bangladesh.
Mominul and Shanto, however, were content to leave, block and slowly chip the shine off the ball. Run-scoring crawled for a while—just 12 came in a ten-over spell—yet the pair looked increasingly assured. Pakistan’s missed chance did not help: Mominul edged Afridi between Agha and debutant Abdullah Fazal, neither fielder moving decisively and the ball dying on the turf. “Catches do swing sessions, especially on mornings like this,” bowling coach Morne Morkel admitted during the broadcast.
The shift in rhythm was subtle but telling. As the surface eased and the Kookaburra softened, Shanto began to open his shoulders, driving through the covers and twice clipping Afridi behind square for boundaries. Afridi’s second spell—nine runs off each of his first two overs—undermined the pressure he had built earlier. “We probably chased the wicket a touch instead of sticking to the top-of-off plan,” Shaheen said later, sounding more rueful than angry.
Masood briefly turned to Agha’s part-time off-spin, only for Shanto to rock back and pull the first short ball over midwicket for the morning’s solitary six. That stroke felt like a punctuation mark: the last ten overs before the break yielded 56 runs, Bangladesh moving from survival to something approaching control.
At the interval Shanto was 39 not out, Mominul 31, and the pair had put on the kind of stand coaches file under ‘innings-saving’. “It’s just one session,” Mominul reminded reporters. “The track’s still doing a bit and Pakistan’s attack doesn’t give you many freebies. But yes, settling in after those early wickets was crucial.”
For all Pakistan’s early fizz, they must now reset after lunch with an older ball and fewer helpful clouds. Bangladesh, meanwhile, have the opportunity to convert a gritty recovery into something more substantial—though, as anyone who watched the first hour will point out, the next clatter of wickets could be only one good delivery away.
Lunch: Bangladesh 101 for 2 (Shanto 39*, Mominul 31; Hasan 1-19) v Pakistan
