The sixth-wicket pairing came to the rescue once again as England clawed their way to a working total – 258 for seven – rather than an imposing one on a beguiling day of Test cricket. There was relief when Alastair Cook won the toss, but that emotion did not return until Moeen Ali and Jonny Bairstow combined to drag the score beyond 200 on a pitch that offered the spinners much more help than expected.
These conditions were brilliantly exploited for Bangladesh by Mehedi Hasan, who made a sensational debut. The 18-year-old bowled the second over of the match and finished the day with five for 64 from 33 overs of cleverly crafted off‑breaks. Mehedi will be around for a long time.
It is a little known statistic – except for those within earshot of Test Match Special’s scorer, Andrew Samsom – that England’s most prolific partnerships throughout the calendar year have been for the sixth wicket. So it was on day one. The average number of runs produced in 2016, albeit aided by 399 runs in Cape Town where Ben Stokes and Bairstow ran riot, is 84, far higher than any other combination.
On Thursday the sixth-wicket pairing of Moeen and Bairstow added a vital 88. These numbers remind us of two things: the virtue of so many all-rounders in the England side and the frailty of their upper order. On Thursday in an innings that began myopically before offering moments of majesty, Moeen oversaw a recovery while Bairstow hungrily gathered runs in the final session until he, too, became a victim of the marvellous Mehedi.
In fact the off-spinner is no conjurer. He is a conventional bowler who propels the ball accurately and spins it vigorously. Mehedi calmly took possession of the new ball against England’s debutant, Ben Duckett, and of the two novices he was the one who looked more comfortable with this situation.
No doubt Duckett would have preferred something more conventional, some early pace on the ball. Instead he wafted at a 50mph delivery that was his first ball in Test cricket; he hit a couple of boundaries against the relative pace of Shafiul Islam before being bowled by Mehedi, when playing inside the line of an off-break.
From the start the young off-spinner found turn on an arid surface; more remarkably he was able to control a shiny new ball with aplomb. His pedigree is suddenly obvious since he had captained Bangladesh’s Under-19s in their past two World Cup campaigns. And they say he can bat as well.
Next Alastair Cook was bowled in an undignified manner. He tried to sweep a delivery from Shakib Al Hasan, who had been hastily introduced into the attack; the ball hit Cook’s glove as he overbalanced before plopping on to the stumps. Once Gary Ballance had been given lbw to Hasan after an artful review – the ball hit Ballance’s pad just before his bat – England were in some disarray at 21 for three.
Joe Root batted masterfully as if this was a routine crisis alongside Moeen, who was much less assured and seemed to be looking for the ball rather than watching it. On either side of lunch he had what must have been a traumatic experience. Three times in the space of six deliveries he was given out lbw by the umpire Kumar Dharmesena when facing Shakib. Each time Moeen opted to review the decision; each time, after what seemed an interminable delay, he was reprieved.
This sequence of events capped a frustrating day for Bangladesh when using DRS. On two other occasions they reviewed unsuccessfully against Moeen. Moreover, when he was on one they declined to review a leg‑before appeal from Mehedi that TV pictures soon demonstrated had all the right ingredients for dismissal.
However, after the interval Bangladesh could celebrate the swift departure of Root, caught at slip via the thigh of the wicketkeeper when fencing at another Mehedi off-break. Soon after Stokes, stuck on the crease, was deceived by a quicker ball from Shakib, which passed through his gate and England were 106 for five.
Now Moeen found some fluency; he skipped down the pitch to hit Mehedi for six over mid-on and this one stroke seemed to restore his confidence. Along with Bairstow, dropped at slip on 13, the familiar pattern of lower-order restoration of an England innings commenced.
Eventually Moeen was defeated by a classic delivery from Mehedi, which just brushed the outside edge of his bat. To save time and to give some respite to the third umpire Sundaram Ravi, who must have been compelled to desert countless cups of tea in the pavilion on the busiest of days, Moeen marched off. Bairstow busily reached his half-century before he, too, was defeated by the young off-spinner. But the increasingly dependable Chris Woakes snatched important runs as dusk approached.
On Friday morning England will be hoping to reach beyond 300, which may yet be a good score on this surface perhaps bolstered by the knowledge that for the first time since 1992 all 11 of their players can boast first-class hundreds. Then an intriguing test for England’s triumvirate of spinners awaits. They will do well to match the performance of Mehedi, who began his Test career like a veteran.
