After India announced that it had two and a half days remaining to bowl the visitors out, Bangladesh quickly reached 56 for no loss.
Rishabh Pant scored an impassioned sixth century and Shubman Gill a calm fifth, setting up India’s declaration with two and a half days remaining in the Test. However, Bangladesh had a good start in the chase of 515, reaching 56 for 0 before tea on day three.
The pitch had not yet broken up, and the average seam movement had decreased from 1.3 degrees on day one to 0.4 degrees on day three, making for the finest batting conditions of the match. Despite India’s attacking approach to setting up the declaration, Bangladesh could only elicit 16 incorrect answers in 41 overs on day three, resulting in 206 runs. A bright indicator for them was that the flatness persisted: they made only 17 mistakes in the 13 overs they batted before tea.
Given the circumstances, Gill and Pant, both aggressive batters accustomed to counterattacking, realized that only they could get themselves out and lowered their heads for massive hits. They kept respecting good balls and once inside, they jumped out.
Mehidy Hasan Miraz bowled 25 of the 64 second-inning overs, but Gill blasted four of them for sixes to reach 28 for his Test career in just his 26th match. Pant, who is seventh-highest for India with 59 Tests after just 34 matches, took a fancy to Shakib Al Hasan’s left-arm spin and responded with four sixes of his own. With 85 sixes so far in 2024, India is only five wickets shy of shattering the record for the most sixes by a team in a calendar year.More amazing was what the two accomplished when they weren’t in the sixes. These two started the day respecting the bowling, and they were given the opportunity to defend for a long without having to worry about edges and close-in fielders, in contrast to Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma on the third evening who just sought to force themselves on the bowling. The only attempt to press the issue came in the seventh over of the day, which Gill masterfully executed with the two sixes over wide long-on.
After being cleanly dismissed in the first innings, Pant was extra careful not to give anything away. It took him even longer to start making shots, and none of them were as good as the ramp-sweep that took Hasan Mahmud for a six over fine leg 10 minutes before lunch. Before midday Gill joined in the acceleration, implying that the announcement might occur sooner rather than later. Seven minutes before halftime, Pant attempted a faster run, but captain Najmul Hossain Shanto stopped it. Pant continued to lay down the gauntlet for the race to the hundred, hitting two fours in the last over before the interval.After lunch, Pant reached his hundred in just 118 balls by using his signature flip behind the square to go past both the quicks and the spinners. After KL Rahul produced a few of elegant inside-out drives and Gill reached the target more composedly in 161 balls, the declaration gave Bangladesh an hour to bat until tea.
With gusto, Zakir Hasan struck early on, striking Mohammed Siraj with a flipped six in addition to driving both off the front and back foot. The two punished every mistake in length by keeping an eye out for runs while the ball did not do much. However, Akash Deep and R Ashwin sent them to further testing without luck.
