Mohammed Siraj and Kuldeep Yadav: A dance of fire and ice

The surface at Chottogram had some tucked up peril up its sleeve that brought India down to its knees early in the first innings before Cheteshwar Pujara would plug in a staunch shift to stabilize the ship alongside Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant followed by some late heroics from Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav.

It took India quite a while and a fair bit of persistence in posting a momentous 404 on the board before Bangladesh would come out to bat and find themselves entangled in a dance of ice and fire. Mohammed Siraj blazed the early embers while Kuldeep Yadav unleashed a cold and calculated blizzard to rattle the hosts inside out.

Miyan dealt an opening blow on his very first ball, conjuring a ripper that would take a death wobble and drift away from Najmul Hossain Shanto leaving him bamboozled with the thought that the cherry had enough to nip back in. The ball caught a sharp edge and Rishabh Pant plucked an absolute ripper to remove the Bangladeshi opener.

Just when it felt that the hosts had started to stabilize themselves after a shuddering start, Siraj struck again and this time it was the big wicket of Litton Das. There was a heated exchange between the RCB quick and the Bangladeshi hard-hitter on the delivery before the former would rip open the defences of the batter with an impeccable peach. A delivery bowled on the line of the off-stump nipped back in ever so slightly that caught Das off guard and the latter with very minimal time to react played it down onto his own stumps.

Siraj’s third blow of the day was another set opener for Bangladesh, Zakir Hasan as he produced a similar gem with which he removed Shanto, to force the cherry to veer off its actual path and take a sharp nick before being pouched by Pant to make it a three-fer for Miyan.

If Siraj’s early magic left Bangladesh reeling in agony, Kuldeep’s late introduction weaved a web of insoluble mystery around the hosts from which they could never untangle themselves. Introduced in the 25th over, Kuldeep removed the Bangladeshi skipper with a slow turner that forced the latter to prance down the pitch and while trying to play against the spin, he ended up depositing his enterprise into the hands of Virat Kohli at first slip.

The next prey to Kuldeep’s marauding spells was Nurul Hasan as he was left confounded by an over-speeding skitter that was plucked mid-air by Shubman Gill at short-leg. If the fall of Hasan was an omen of dark times on the horizon for the hosts, the telling blow to Mushfiqur Rahim who was staging the fightback was the onset of a never-ending uncertainty. Kuldeep caught Mushfiqur off-guard with a googly that nipped back in and before the batter could bring down his willow, the cherry had enough rampage going its way to register a third for the chinaman.

The Delhi Capitals spinner was quick with the clean-up of the Bangladeshi tail as he claimed Taijul Islam, thereby giving him a dose of his own medicine while forcing an unwanted edge from Ebadot Hossain to skittle out Bangladesh for a paltry 150, securing a momentous lead of 254 runs in the first innings for India.

India returned to red-ball cricket after almost 8 months and will be happy to bask in the formation of this unlikely duo that left Bangladesh in shambles and allowed India to have a step ahead in the right direction towards the WTC final.