Stopping the clocks in Mirpur

Dave Sihra (Dave Meets Ball - Substack)

On Day Three Ireland's remaining batters fought hard to keep Bangladesh in the field with Lorcan Tucker almost reaching three figures again at Mirpur but it's the home side who hold the cards.

Bangladesh 476 and 156 for 1 (Shadman 69*, Mahmudul 60) lead Ireland 265 (Tucker 75*, Neill 49, Doheny 46, Taijul 4-76, Khaled 2-39, Murad 2-53) by 367 runs

This is where the struggle becomes very real: having to bowl in a test after a team don’t impose the follow on and then bat again to get even further ahead. As the bowling side, you’ve don’t realistically have a chance and the opposition decide the rest of the game.

Some might argue that following on and having to bat again is the bigger struggle for the side already on the back foot. However now we’ve entered a slow death. Bangladesh can build an extremely comfortable lead while resting their bowlers. All of Ireland’s team will feel each run. Death by a thousand cuts.

Following on (being asked to bat again in the third innings when you’re 200+ behind) actually allows a strange opportunity to get back into the game. But famous tests such as India vs Australia (2001) at Eden Gardens when the home side came from behind to win after following on mostly put an end to the practice.

So we enter the strange period where Ireland need wickets without having any pressure to apply while Bangladesh just bat time and accumulate. For fans of either team, the test progresses but very slowly.

Almost a world away, the Ashes began in Perth with a test that moved at lightning speed. 19 wickets on Day One. Meanwhile time seemed to move at a completely different pace at Mirpur.

Ireland batted admirably in the first two sessions with Lorcan Tucker and debutant Stephen Doheny putting on 81 off 150 deliveries together. On the ground where he memorably scored a test century on debut, Tucker then batted very well with Jordan Neill to put on a further 74 off 145.

Mention of the deliveries is not to remark on the strike-rate but instead the extra balls these three batters made Bangladesh bowl and then there’s fielders changing positions, passing around helmets etc etc. It all adds up and could come into play later on, you never know.

Tucker (75) was very unlucky not to have a chance to reach his second test century. Bizarrely this would have been his second at this very ground - but perhaps the Pembroke man just has a soft spot for the capital city.

Special mention too has to go to Stephen Doheny (46) who missed out on a half-century on debut while also batting out of position. The Merrion man fought hard for his runs and was even heard talking to himself on stump mic to maintain that focus.

Jordan Neill the bowler is very much still in development, but Jordan Neill the batter has provided some extremely valuable lower order runs in this series. Like Doheny, Neill also just missed out on fifty, and perhaps the confidence of reaching that milestone could have fed into bowling when he was trying to get his lengths right in the final session.

An earthquake of 5.5 magnitude which caused severe tremors in parts of Bangladesh briefly brought a pause in Ireland’s resistance. When play returned Taijul Islam eventually took his fourth to bring himself level with Shakib Al Hasan - Bangladesh’s highest wicket-taker in tests.
The home side closed the day with an already imposing lead of 367 for only the loss of one wicket care of Gavin Hoey who’s leg-spin has looked the part in his debut test match.

Hoey in particular looked very impressive bowling around the wicket to left handers; a key angle of attack for right arm wrist-spinners. If the plan works just right you can force a left handed batter to play through gaps on the off side from that wide angle, while balls bounce in unexpected ways towards middle and leg - think Anil Kumble, Yasir Shah, Alana King etc.

The Pembroke man’s key line of attack will mostly always be over the wicket, but this is a part of his game we saw particularly during the Wolves tour of the UAE earlier this year in both white ball and red ball cricket. That hard work is now bearing fruit, and Hoey certainly made life tricky with inconsistent bounce coming into play.

Today Ireland fought well with the bat and played out valuable time in the test match after the two tough opening days. Beyond the result, this playing group will be much happier putting together another battling performance in the second dig.

This article was originally published on Dave Sihra’s Substack: Dave Meets Ball