BANGLADESH DIARY 19

Bogra: Bangladesh A 152 & 218-7 (Tushar Imran 128 not out), England A 251-8 (N Compton 92). Match drawn.

March 4: England A nearly made up for the loss of 1½ days to rain with a good dart at victory. If Tushar Imran had not survived two slip catches in three balls from Graham Onions early in the morning, Bangladesh would have struggled to save the game.

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Onions found the edge twice with superb outswingers that were shelled by Tim Bresnan and Will Jefferson, and Tushar batted defiantly through the day, undefeated for his 128. He might have made the Bangladesh selectors wonder why they left him out of the World Cup squad.

Onions will be Steve Harmison’s new seam partner at Durham this summer – they have rarely played together before – and he was in excellent form at the Shaheed Chandu Stadium, whipping out both openers for ducks in his first over. Tushar‘s scalp eluded him, and England were made to pay. The Bangladeshi edged Adil Rashid twice to slip and survived a deep midwicket chance to Rashid, off Onions, but the damage had been done.

After the midwicket chance was spurned, Onions’ his next ball was probably his quickest of the day, crashing into the helmet grille of a surprised Sahagir Hossain. Apart from Tushar, none of the Bangladesh batsmen looked convincing. On the other hand Onions bowled extremely well, outshining an under-the-weather Stuart Broad.

My journey to the ground was rather too leisurely. The rickshaw rider had to stop every 200 yards to put the chain back on, and I actually missed Onions’ sensational double wicket over.