India captain KL Rahul admitted that the dressing was extremely tensed when they were seven down for 74 runs in the chase of 145 runs to win the second Test but still believed that someone could put up hands to bail them out of the danger, BSS reports.
And his belief on his teammates turned out to be true as Ravichandran Ashwin and Shreyas Iyer put on a brilliant 71-run partnership for the undefeated eight wicket stand to steer India to a three-wicket victory from the jaws of defeat.
“You trust the guys in the middle (during such situations). We've played enough cricket to realize that someone will put their hand up to win us the game. But I'm not going to lie, there was a lot of tension in the dressing room. It was a tough wicket to bat on, they put us under pressure in both innings,” Rahul said after the match as India swept the two-match Test series following their 2-1 loss to Bangladesh in the ODI series.
“It was a new-ball surface to some extent, once ball got softer, it was easier to score runs. It was a matter of who plays the new ball better. We did lose a few more wickets than ideal (in the chase) but we got the job done. Will take the win. That (bowling attack) has been the case for the last many years now. Wherever we've gone overseas in recent years, we have done the job.”
India won the first game by 188 runs in Chattogram and was favourite to win the second Test also with ease. But Bangladesh which was all out for 227 in their first innings and conceded an 87-run lead came back in style as Mirpur pitch unleashed it true nature, offering variable bounce and got trickier as the days passed.
Ashwin whose 42 not out alongside Iyer’s 29 took the side home, said one needs to trust his defense on this tricky wicket.
“Sometimes these situations you feel like you have to get ahead of things, they bowled good lines and I felt that we didn't trust our defences enough,” Ashwin said.
Chasing a victory target of 145, India was reduced to 45-4 on day three and the day four started with both teams had 50-50 chance. But Bangladesh closed in on victory, taking three Indian wickets, including the dangerman Rishabh Pant in just seven overs of the day, to leave them at 74-7.
Iyer and Ashwin batted with caution and aggression to sail the side home. Ashwin could have gone for 1 had Mominul Haque not put down his catch at short leg of Mehidy Hasan Miraz bowling.
“We didn't have much batting left. It was one of those games where we let the game drift whenever we could have shut it off. Shreyas batted beautifully. Loved the way Shreyas batted,” Ashwin said.
“Pitches are quite good here. But I thought the ball got soft really quickly. Credit to Bangladesh, they put us under real pressure at certain moments.”