Bangladesh v England: Alastair Cook century propels tourists into commanding position
Mar 12 2010 - 10:58:18
A tour of Bangladesh has long been seen as a stretch of hard labour but with the perk of advancing personal stats, often by a factor of 10. If England's batsmen have been slow to take advantage in the past, Alastair Cook made up for it on Friday, his big hundred eclipsing even Kevin Pietersen, who fell one run short of catharsis when he was out for 99.
Cook, unbeaten on 158 at the close, had reached his century 20 minutes before tea to join four other England captains with hundreds in their first Test in charge. Incredibly, one of them, Pietersen, was batting with him, while another, Andrew Strauss, had given Cook the chance to join this little club by missing this tour. Cook even trumped his absent skipper by exceeding his 128, the previous highest score among the quintet, which also includes Allan Lamb and Archie McLaren.
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It was difficult to contextualise Cook's effort. It was a Test innings, but only because the International Cricket Council decreed it so. Apart from the hot, muggy weather and some occasionally tidy bowling, there was very little testing about it except for the endurance of batting for 361 minutes.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board has only itself to blame for Friday's one-sided play, having abrogated its responsibilities as a Test-playing country. According to Jamie Siddons, Bangladesh's Australian coach, the infrastructure here can only sustain 120 players, a scandal in a country of 140 million. But even that neglect cannot explain yesterday's barmy decision by Shakib Al Hasan to put England in to bat.
When you pick a side with three spinners and a spinning all-rounder, and are confronted by a firm pitch being baked even harder by blazing sunshine, you don't ask your opponents to bat. Any attempt at explanation is going to be too obtuse to justify, including the fact that Bangladesh dismissed India for 243 here six weeks ago after bowling first. What it looked like was a classic case of not wanting England with new cap Steve Finn bolstering their four-man attack at the expense of second spinner James Tredwell to bowl on it first.
To compound matters, England got off to a flier, with Cook and Michael Carberry, another debutant, tucking into wayward bowling from Rubel Hossain with a pleasing range of shots. It was so bad that by the eighth over, Shakib had brought himself on to staunch the flow.
It didn't work and before the first hour was up he had made four bowling changes. Eventually, Mahmudullah won an lbw against Carberry with his off-breaks, finding enough turn from around the wicket to satisfy umpire Rod Tucker when the left-hander missed his sweep.
Jonathon Trott could count himself unlucky when he fell to a bouncer from Rubel. The catch to Mushfiqur Rahim, the wicketkeeper, came off his helmet. But if Trott lingered longer than was respectful, his disbelief came close to dissent when he vented his frustration on a chair en route to dressing room.
Spin, and in particular the left-arm variety, sent down by Shakib and Abdur Razzak, failed to hinder Pietersen. His new-style straight-hitting seemed foolproof until he looked for the single that would have brought him his 17th Test hundred. At that point he lapsed back into his old failings against Abdur Razzak and was bowled off-stump.
Pietersen put his own spin on events by proclaiming Shakibul Al Hasan as one of the world's best three spinners. If he believes it, so be it, but no amount of brilliance with the ball by Shakibul can extricate his team from this mire.
