Chennai: Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant feasted on the Bangladeshi bowling to help Team India set the visitors a monumental 515-run victory target in the opening Test here on Saturday.
Going in to bat a second time after India declared their second innings at 287/4, Bangladesh ended Day 3 on 158/4, thanks to an unbeaten half-century by skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto. Local ‘boy’ Ravichandran Ashwin used his guile to snare three wickets in the final session after Jasprit Bumrah had given India the breakthrough following a 62-run opening stand.
With two days remaining in the game, Bangladesh need 357 more runs, with six wickets in hand, to reach a never-before achieved target in the fourth innings.
Gill and Pant resumed their fourth-wicket partnership on the third day and batted with great poise and supreme elegance on a pitch which had eased out considerably. The right-left combination made the Bangladesh attack, which had given the much-feared Indian top order a scare on Day 1, look ordinary with a dazzling array of strokes against both pace and spin.
Pant celebrated his return to Test cricket after a gap of 639 days with his fifth Test century (109 off 128 balls, 13×4, 4×6). The wicketkeeper-batter, despite going in to bat 16 overs after Gill’s arrival at the crease on Friday, beat the right-hander to the coveted three-figure mark.
A few minutes later, Gill brought up his sixth Test hundred and remained unbeaten on 119 (176 balls, 10×4, 4×6) when Rohit Sharma declared the innings midway through the third day.
Brief Scores
India 1st innings: 376 in 91.2 overs.
Bangladesh 1st innings: 149 in 47.1 overs.
India 2nd innings: 287/4 decl. in 64 overs (Shubman Gill 119 not out, Rishabh Pant 109; Mehidy Hasan Miraz 2/103).
Bangladesh 2nd innings: 158/4 in 37.2 overs (Najmul Hossain Shanto batting 51, Shadman Islam 35; R Ashwin 3/63).
Match situation: Bangladesh need 357 more runs, India need 6 wkts to win first Test.
Test to resume on Day 4.
