Mushfiqur fifty takes game to third day

A half-century from Mushfiqur Rahim helped Bangladesh avoid the ignominy of losing a Test match within two days but that might not be enough to avoid an innings defeat as they trail India by 89 runs after day two of the second Test at Eden Gardens.

The right-hander remained not out on 59 and helped Bangladesh better their first innings total of 106 as they ended the day at 152-6.

Mushfiqur Rahim found an able partner in Mahmudullah Riyad, who scored 39 runs and looked good for more before pulling up with a leg injury and retired hurt.

At one stage Bangladesh looked set to score less than the 106 they scored in the first innings as they stumbled to 13-4 after 6.4 overs in the second innings, before the Mushfiq-Mahmudullah partnership of 69-runs counter-attacked.

But overall, the day once again belonged to India, who dominated the visitors on all three departments and showed once again why they are the number one-ranked Test team and on top of the ICC Test Championship.  

A Kohli masterclass

Virat Kohli was at his imperious best earlier in the day as he scored his 27th Test century.

The highlight of his innings came in the 71st over of the Indian batting innings as he hit four consecutive boundaries to different parts of the ground off the bowling of Abu Jayed Rahi.

The innings of 136 from just 194 deliveries was glittered with 18 boundaries, and some of his on-drives were a delight for the pack crowd at Eden Gardens.

The innings – his 41st international century - was a spectacular one but it ended in equally spectacular fashion when Taijul Islam took the catch of the match at deep-backward square-leg off the bowling of Ebadat Hossain.

The ball was going down leg as Kohli played a flick, but failed to ground the ball and Taijul flung himself full stretch to the left to take the catch mid-air to take the catch.

The century puts Kohli second in the list of Captains with most international centuries.

He is joint-top of the list with former Australian Captain, Ricky Ponting on 41 tons and one would assume he will overtake Ponting very soon.

Bowlers dominate second session

Batting in the twilight zone has been considered the most difficult in day-night Test matches so far and that is where the bulk of the wickets have fallen so far, and it was no exception today.

Bangladesh managed to take five Indian wickets in the session with the fast bowlers bowling well with the new ball.

The ball tends to turn orangish during sunset with a mix of natural light and the artificial light from the flood-lights and batsmen find it difficult to see the ball.

Abu Jayed first managed to take the wicket of Ravindra Jadeja as he left a ball that swung in clattered his off stump as the score was 289-5.

With the new ball then taken, Kohli departed with the score on 308 and from there the wickets of Ravichandran Ashwin (9), Umesh Yadav (0), and Ishant Sharma (0), fell as Kohli then decided to declare with the score on 347-9.

Al-Amin Hossain ended with figures of 3-85, while Ebadat took 3-91 and Abu Jayed took 2-77, to cap off a decent bowling performance.

Bangladesh top order crumble again

Inept batting from the Bangladesh top order continued and the declaration from Kohli proved to be a smart one as Bangladesh lost two top order batsmen – Shadman Islam and Captain Mominul Haque – for ducks and ended the second session on 7-2.

From there, they lost the wickets of Imrul Kayes and Mohammad Mithun in the beginning of the third session as a loss within day two looked ominous.

Mithun played a loose pull off the bowling of Umesh Yadav and gifted an easy catch to the shot-mid-wicket fielder Mohammad Shami after scoring just four runs.

Imrul was out for just five runs after edging a simple catch to Virat Kohli at second slip as Bangladesh fell further into trouble.

This might as well have been the last innings for Imrul Kayes in international Test cricket as he has not scored an innings past 50 in his last 22 Test innings.