Shubman Gill overcame a watchful start to lead the way for India with an unbeaten 80 while Cheteshwar Pujara was brisk in his unbeaten 33 to take the team's lead to 394 at the end of second session's play on Day 3 of the first Test against Bangladesh, here on Friday.
After captain KL Rahul (23) gave away a cautious start, Gill and Pujara joined forces for the second-wicket partnership currently unbroken at 70 from 99 deliveries for India to be 140/1 at Tea. With the ball starting to turn sharply on various occasions, the visitors' could up the ante in the final session against a tired Bangladesh bowling attack.
Gill had his share of struggle in the first session, and even got to overturn an lbw decision via DRS off Taijul Islam. But with some help from Bangladesh's bowling feeling the strain of not having Ebadot Hossain and Shakib Al Hasan, Gill slashed, swept with authority, glancing gently off hips and then brought out his trademark short-arm jab to collect four boundaries.
When Mehidy Hasan Miraz gave some flight, Gill was quick to dance down the pitch and lean into the drive through cover. On the other hand, Bangladesh's short ball ploy to KL Rahul worked when the Indian skipper pulled straight to fielder in the deep off Khaled Ahmed.
Gill had luck on his side when a sharp turn from Mehidy trapped him lbw, and Bangladesh burnt a review as on-field call of not out stayed. On the very next ball, Gill came out to whip Mehidy off his wrists through mid-wicket, followed by bringing up his fifty and sweeping the off-spinner for another cracking boundary.
Against a harmless short ball from Khaled, Gill was pristine in nailing the pull over the rope for six and swept against Taijul too as India continued to pile up the runs on Bangladesh. Gill's strokeplay meant Cheteshwar Pujara was able to take time and get going with punches and pull off Mehidy and Khaled.
Part-time off-spin of Yasir Ali caused little trouble and when he was confident of getting Gill out lbw, Bangladesh asked for DRS after the on-field umpire turned down the appeal. But the DRS was not available due to technical issues and the on-field decision stayed. Pujara increased Yasir's agony by bringing out pull and on-drive to take a brace of boundaries before tea arrived.
Brief Scores:
India 404 in 133.5 overs (Cheteshwar Pujara 90; Taijul Islam 4/133) and 140/1 in 39 overs (Shubman Gill 80 not out, Cheteshwar Pujara 33 not out; Khaled Ahmed 1/51) lead Bangladesh 150 all out in 55.5 overs (Mushfiqur Rahim 28, Mehidy Hasan Miraz 25; Kuldeep Yadav 5/40, Mohammed Siraj 3/20) by 394 runs
