Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim won an important toss and unsurprisingly opted to bat against a spin-heavy Australia in the second and final test in Chittagong on Monday.
Aussie spinner Lyon dismissed Bangladesh southpaw opener Tamim (9) early. And later trapped Imrul in lbw, who was 4 off 11. Somya and Mominul are on the crease with 19 and 0 runs respectively, while Bangladesh scored 32 in 16 overs.
Still smarting from their first ever defeat by the hosts, Australia packed their line-up with three specialist spinners but yet again face the daunting prospect of batting fourth at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium.
The tourists replaced batsman Usman Khawaja and injured paceman Josh Hazlewood with batting all-rounder Hilton Cartwright and Steve O‘Keefe, who joins fellow left-arm spinner Ashton Agar and off-spinner Nathan Lyon in the slow bowling department, reports bdnews24.com.
“The wicket looks dry... hopefully we can put up a good score in the first innings,” Rahim said, adding the hosts were done celebrating their victory in Dhaka.
“It’s in the past and this is a new game, a fresh game. The boys need to do it again and it’s a great opportunity to play with probably the best team.”
Bangladesh picked an extra batsman in Mominul Haque who replaces paceman Shafiul Islam.
Australia captain Steve Smith admitted he, too, would have preferred to bat.
“We have to try and restrict them as much as we can and then bat well... something we did not do well in the last game, something we want to rectify,” Smith said.
“We got to work on our lengths and obviously first innings runs are important as well.”
Teams:
Bangladesh - Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim (wicketkeeper-captain), Shakib Al Hasan, Sabbir Rahman, Nasir Hossain, Mehidy Hasan, Taijiul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman
Australia - David Warner, Matt Renshaw, Steve Smith (captain), Peter Handscomb, Glenn Maxwell, Hilton Cartwright, Matthew Wade, Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins, Steve O‘Keefe, Nathan Lyon
