MIRPUR, 6 Apr: Lorcan Tucker hit a flawless century on debut as Ireland fought back against Bangladesh to inject life into their one-off test on Thursday.
\nAfter falling to 51-5 on the third morning and facing an innings defeat against the much-vaunted spin attack of Bangladesh, the Irish dug in and grittily batted out the day to give themselves faint hope.
\nTucker\u2019s ton, complemented by career-best half-centuries from Harry Tector and Andy McBrine, helped Ireland survive day three and reach stumps on 286-8, leading Bangladesh by 131 runs.
\nTucker, who made 108 off 162 balls with 14 fours and one six, became the second Irishman to hit a century on debut after Kevin O\u2019Brien in 2018.
\n\u201cWe will be pretty happy with anything up near 170-180,\u201d Tucker said.
\n\u201cThe wicket is playing well and it will break up a little bit more. We know we can take wickets to win the game tomorrow. We hope to give Bangladesh a real target to chase. We think all the pressure is on them.\u201d
\nTucker formed two significant partnerships of 72 with Tector for the sixth wicket and 111 with McBrine for the seventh wicket that put Ireland in front.
\nBangladesh was bowled out for 369 in its first innings, taking a 155-run lead.
\nTector, one of the six Irish debutants, followed his 50 in the first innings with 56.
\nMcBrine, who registered the best test bowling figures by an Irish bowler in the first innings with 6-118, was 71 not out.
\nTector and Peter Moor were at the crease at the start of the day, at 27-4. Bangladesh could have got Tector early on 9 when he edged a slower delivery by left-arm spinner Taijul Islam but wicketkeeper Liton Das put it down.
\nTector made Bangladesh pay for it heavily.
\nMoor was dismissed midway through the first session when he edged behind pacer Shoriful Islam on 16. But Tucker\u2019s arrival led to an uptick on the scoreboard from his bold approach to attack the spinners, especially Taijul.
\nTector raised his second fifty in the test off 145 balls, with an outside edge of Khaled Ahmed that flew into the gap between the slips and gully.
\nTaijul trapped Tector when he tried to paddle sweep a delivery that didn\u2019t turn much, but Tector had 56 and lasted 159 balls and more than three hours.
\nBangladesh\u2019s line and lengths were off, and Tucker and McBrine added to the home side\u2019s frustration to further dent its hopes of wrapping up the visitors\u2019 innings quickly.
\nThe batters went after the spinners fearlessly. Tucker drove Taijul to midwicket for a single to raise his fifty off 94 balls, assured by McBrine\u2019s surprising comfort at the other end for a tailender.
\nTucker hit Taijul for a boundary through midoff to raise his maiden hundred off just 149 balls.
\n\u201cIt is pretty special,\u201d Tucker said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t something that I thought would happen today. We were under a lot of pressure. We tried to take it ball by ball and bat for as long as we could. It was very special to get a personal reward. The team is also in a great position. We are looking forward to tomorrow.\u201d
\n\u201cWe have two wickets left but Andy is batting beautifully. We think we can extend our lead and give a good go at Bangladesh tomorrow.\u201d
\nTucker was undone by the second new ball when Ebadot Hossain had him caught by Shoriful.
\nTaijul removed Mark Adair for 13 to end the day as the best Bangladesh bowler with 4-86.
\nSkipper Shakib Al Hasan, a left-arm spinner who bagged two wickets on day two, bowled only six overs on day three.
\n\u201cI really don\u2019t know why he hasn\u2019t bowled enough today,\u201d bowling coach Allan Donald said of Shakib. Donald added Shakib\u2019s bowling could make a difference.
\n\u201cWhat Shakib does amazingly well is he shuts one end down and (it\u2019s tough to play him) because he\u2019s such an experienced campaigner, he varies his pace really smartly. Although there was no real turn all day long, I thought he would\u2019ve been a guy that would control one end.\u201d
\nGraham Hume, another debutant on 9, saw out the day with McBrine. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MIRPUR, 6 Apr: Lorcan Tucker hit a flawless century on debut as Ireland fought back against Bangladesh to inject life into their one-off test on Thursday. After falling to 51-5 on the third morning and facing an innings defeat against the much-vaunted spin attack of Bangladesh, the Irish dug in and grittily batted out the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-214446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}