India eye whitewash as Bangladesh hope to throw a spanner in India’s WTC Final plans

It was an emphatic outing for the Men in Blue in the series opener at Chottogram as they ran riot against the hosts in emphatic fashion with their batters racking up the required steam in both the innings while their bowlers showcased their sublime flair to get the required job done.

The Indian team is likely to come into this fixture with an unchanged playing XI from the one that secured an important win in the curtain-raiser of the series. However, with Rahul’s injury concern just ahead of the second Test, India may start preparing a possible back-up plan in Cheteshwar Pujara who is the deputy to the former.

India will have to watch out for their top-order as it had a false start in the first innings of the contest while also ensuring that the innings is well-balanced. The bowlers have been in fine touch but would also be focusing on averting bigger partnerships like the one that kept them at bay for two consecutive sessions in Bangladesh’s second innings.

Even though the Tigers are a reckoning force in the shorter formats of the game, it seems that their Test unit still has a lot of catching up to do. They have managed to conjure intermittent bursts of brilliance but the consistency as an elemental factor has somehow drifted in and out of focus.

Venue Watch:

One of the mainstays in Dhaka, the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium has so far bore witness to 23 Test matches. 12 of them have been won batting first while 8 have been won chasing. The average first innings score is 341 while the average second innings score is 317. The numbers usually dip further with the bowlers savouring a late sway in the contest.

Stats:

India has three double-centurions in the Indo-Bangladesh Test rivalry namely Sachin Tendulkar, Mayank Agarwal and Virat Kohli who are the only figures to cross the hallowed mark of a double-ton in an innings against Bangladesh in whites.

Surprisingly, Cheteshwar Pujara has the highest number of half-centuries in the India-Bangladesh Test rivalry with 6 fifties to his name as he surpassed Sachin Tendulkar in the preceding Test.

The current Indian coach, Rahul Dravid has claimed the leading number of catches in Test in the Indo-Bangladesh feud being the sharp vigilante that he was in the slip cordon.

Head-to-head:

Matches played: 12

India: 10

Bangladesh: 0

Match Details:

India vs Bangladesh

Sher-E-Bangla Stadium, Mirpur

22nd – 26th December 2022

9:00 AM IST

Squads:

India:

KL Rahul (C), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara (VC), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (WK), KS Bharat (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Saurabh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat.

Bangladesh:

Mahmudul Hasan Joy, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Mominul Haque, Yasir Ali, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan (c), Litton Das, Nurul Hasan, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Khaled Ahmed, Zakir Hasan, Rejaur Rahman Raja and Nasum Ahmed