Bangladesh 234 and 310 for 4 (Soumya 123*, Mahmudullah 65*, Boult 2-84) trail New Zealand 715 for 6 dec by 171 runs
It hasn’t yet reached the epic proportions of Angelo Mathews and Kusal Mendis batting all day in Wellington, and the means adopted have been rather different, but Soumya Sarkar and Mahmudullah gave Bangladesh plenty of reason to cheer with their defiance in Hamilton. A wicketless first session on day four stretched their fifth-wicket partnership to 184, with Soumya completing a rollicking maiden Test century along the way.
In a session of fire meeting fire, Bangladesh scored their runs at 4.69 per over, and reduced their deficit from 307 at the start of play to 171 at lunch.
Soumya took only 94 balls to reach his hundred – it was the joint-quickest by a Bangladesh batsman, alongside Tamim Iqbal’s effort at Lord’s in 2010 – and the pace of his scoring had everything to do with his clear-headed response to New Zealand’s short-ball tactics. In a first hour full of bouncers from Neil Wagner and Trent Boult, both left-armers changing their angle of attack frequently, Soumya kept stepping back and across and kept hooking, ignoring the leg-side boundary riders.
He wasn’t always in control – he went to lunch with an overall control percentage of 78, and 67 against Wagner – but he didn’t waver from his plan. Sixty-five of his 123 runs, as a result, came behind square on the leg side, as did eight of his 16 fours and four of his five sixes.
Mahmudullah was a little more selective in his approach, ducking and weaving out of the way of the bouncers or hopping to get on top of the bounce and keep the ball down, and only occasionally rolling his wrists over a pull or hook.
By the time New Zealand made their first bowling change of the day, Boult and Wagner had conceded 57 runs off 11 overs. If their bowling was a little one-dimensional, it had quite a lot to do with the pitch, which, like most surfaces in these parts over recent years, has become progressively flatter as the match has gone on.
It isn’t a coincidence that the visiting side has been bowled out in less than 100 overs in the first innings of each of the four previous Tests played in New Zealand since the start of 2018, and that they have each time managed to breach the 100-over mark in the second innings. Bangladesh are well on their way to continuing that trend.
The pace of scoring slowed somewhat in the second hour of the session, but Soumya and Mahmudullah batted with far more control against the more conventional lengths of Tim Southee and Colin de Grandhomme and the legspin off Todd Astle. It must have disappointed New Zealand that Astle, only used for two overs on day three, failed to provide any real control, sending down plenty of loose balls in a nine-over spell that went for 46 runs. Both batsmen also used their feet to hit him for a six apiece, Mahmudullah bringing up his fifty in that manner.
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