Kanpur: Two entire days were abandoned without a ball being bowled, after Day 1 saw just 35 overs of cricket in the second and final Test against Bangladesh at Green Park Stadium here.
As the game resumed under bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine on Monday, with Bangladesh, on 107/3 in their first innings, few expected anything but a draw in this Test match.
Not Team India, as skipper Rohit Sharma believed that the home team could still push for victory in their pursuit of a berth in next year’s World Test Championship (WTC) final.
The bowlers first dismissed Bangladesh for 233, before the batters showed great intent and went all guns blazing to try and force a result in what seemed to be a ‘dead’ Test match.
Jasprit Bumrah led the way with 3/50, while Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep and Ravichandran Ashwin captured two wickets apiece.
Rohit then led from the front to launch a merciless assault on Bangladesh bowlers, opening his innings with two sixes off the first two deliveries he faced, after his young partner Yashasvi Jaiswal smacked three fours in the first over.
The openers raced to 51 in three overs to set the tone for India’s reply. The captain’s message was loud and clear – score as quickly as possible, overhaul the Bangladesh total and put pressure on their batters on the final day.
Every batsman followed the team directive to the ‘T’ and played attacking shots from the word go. There was no slogging, just pure cricketing shots as it rained fours and sixes at Green Park – a la T20 cricket.
Never did the scoring rate fall below 8 runs per over as records tumbled like nine pins. Every milestone that India reached erased the previous fastest mark (see List below).
Rohit made 23 off 11 balls (1×4, 3×6), Jaiswal top-scored with 72 off 51 balls (12×4, 2×6), Shubman Gill made 39 off 36 balls (4×4, 1×6), Virat Kohli 47 off 35 (4×4, 1×6) and KL Rahul a classy 68 off 43 balls (7×4, 2×6) before Rohit declared at 285/9 in a rollicking 34.4 overs.
Trailing by 52 runs, Bangladesh lost opener Zakir Hasan and nightwatchman Hasan Mahmud to the guiles of Ashwin to be at a precarious 26/2 at stumps on Day 4.
On an eventful day’s cricket completely dominated by Team India, as many as 437 runs were scored while 18 wickets fell.
BRIEF SCORES
Bangladesh 1st innings: 233 all out in 74.2 overs (Mominul Haque 107 not out; Jasprit Bumrah 3/50, Akash Deep 2/43, R Ashwin 2/45, Md Siraj 2/57).
India 1st innings: 285/9 declared in 34.4 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 72, KL Rahul 68, Virat Kohli 47, Shubman Gill 39; Mehidy Hasan Miraz 4/41, Shakib Al Hasan 4/78).
Bangladesh 2nd innings: 26/2 in 11 overs (R Ashwin 2/14).
Match situation: Bangladesh trail by 26 runs.
2nd Test to continue on fifth & final day.
WORLD RECORDS ON DAY 4 IN KANPUR TEST
Indians set the following world records on a memorable Monday:
* Fastest Team Fifty – India reached 51/0 in 3 just overs (previous quickest 50 by England in 4.2 overs vs WI at Nottingham in July 2024)
* Fastest Team Hundred – India reached 103/1 in 10.1 overs (previous best by India in 12.2 overs vs WI at Port of Spain, 2023)
* Fastest Team 150 – India reached 150/3 in 18.2 overs
* Fastest Team 200 – India reached 201/4 in 24.2 overs (previous record by Australia in 28.1 overs vs Pakistan, 2017)
* Fastest Team 250 – India reached 250/5 in 30.1 overs
Ravindra Jadeja – Became second-quickest allrounder to bag 300 wickets and score 3,000-puls runs in Test cricket when he dismissed Bangladesh’s Khaled Ahmed. He did the coveted double in 74 Tests, just behind Englishman Ian Botham’s record of 72 matches. Jadeja beat Indians R Ashwin and Kapil Dev to the 300-3,000 milestone.
Virat Kohli – Became fastest batter to aggregate 27,000 runs in International cricket — in 594 innings. He surpassed Sachin Tendulkar’s record (623 innings).
Kohli’s tally includes – 8,918 runs in Tests; 13,906 runs in ODIs; 4,188 runs in T20Is.
