Rain Catches Windies With Draws Down

When you loose 40% of a match to rain, a draw becomes a near certainty and so it will be in Chittagong. When the opposing sides contain so many inexperienced players who are convinced their career depends more on not getting out than on what they do while they are there, then that lack of time makes it all that more inevitable that no result can be found.

Bangladesh added another 95 to their first day total before declaring. Davendra Bishoo picked up three wickets from the cheaper seats on a wicket that is now turning.

The West Indies, with a great gulf between the inexperience of the top three and veterans which follow, stumbled along in the 51 overs until stumps, some making starts and others not but only Shiv Chanderpaul looking a Test player. The normally dour middle order player who has passed Courtney Walsh as the West Indies most capped player, batted his average but with, for him, an almost indecent haste. He left his career strike rate behind (42 per 100 balls) in scoring his 49 off just 72 and included two sixes off the debutante Elias Sunny. Both were plonked back over Sunny's head but the newcomer exacted revenge when a questionable decision saw Chanderpaul caught at slip, apparently off his pad as he advanced down the wicket.

Elias Sunny gets his first Test wicket

Sunny picked up four of the five wickets to fall in an excellent debut. The left arm orthodox - yes, I know, we really don't have enough of them in the game - held his cool after having Kirk Edwards dropped twice before claiming him as his first Test wicket and then quickly removed Bravo. Chanderpaul and Samuels each had a turn at attacking him, rightly seeing his spin as the main danger and therefore trying to put the young man off his game. Shakib Al Hossain, peddling the same wares as Sunny, bowled a tight line to keep pressure on from bowl ends.

West Indies will struggle on the last day against the spin, but with the follow on all but avoided, time will prevent any miracle Bangladesh might wish to dream of overnight.