Mahmudul Hasan Joy and Najmul Hossain Shanto starred with the bat as Bangladesh showed a terrific fightback against New Zealand on Day 2 of the ongoing first Test against New Zealand here at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui on Sunday.
After bundling out the Kiwis at 328, Bangladesh’s score read 175/2 at the Stumps on Day 2 with Mahmudul and Najmul registering their individual half-centuries. The visitors are now trailing by 153 runs. Currently, Mahmudul and Mominul Haque are standing unbeaten at the crease and keeping the game in the favour of Bangladesh.
Coming to bat, Bangladesh got off to a steady start as opener Shadman Islam got caught and bowled by Neil Wagner and left the score at 43/1. Later, the duo of Mahmudul and Najmul played breakthrough knocks of 70* and 64 runs respectively and kept the scoreboard moving.
New Zealand finally got a sigh of relief when Wagner struck back again and dismissed Najmul when Bangladesh’s score read 147/2. After that, Mominul Haque joined Mahmudul and the duo took the score to 175/2 and ended the day on a good note for their side.
Earlier, beginning Day 2 from 258/5, Kiwis had a disappointing start as Rachin Ravindra, who joined Henry Nicholls, had to depart for just 4 runs. Nicholls was then joined by Kyle Jamieson. The duo tried to anchor the innings for some time but Jamieson was caught out by Shadman Islam and Kiwis’ score read 297-7. This was not the end of the misery for BlackCaps as they suffered a double blow of losing back to back wickets of Tim Southee and Neil Wagner, which was then followed by Nicholls’ wicket.
Brief Score: New Zealand 258/5 (Devon Conway 122, Henry Nicholls 75; Shoriful Islam 3/269) vs Bangladesh 175/2 (Mahmudul Hasan Joy 70*, Najmul Hossain Shanto 64; Neil Wagner 2/27).