Bangladesh A batting in tatters

Big names were called in to avoid losing the series but on Wednesday Bangladesh A were proven helpless against West Indies A as they are put on the verge of another forced follow-on following their poor performance with the bat on the second day of the third and final four-day match in Sylhet.

Bangladesh A ended the second day on 157-7, trailing by 288 runs after the Caribbeans scored 445-10 in their first innings. Bangladesh A now need another 138 runs to avoid a forced follow-on.

Bangladesh stumbled early in their innings after losing opener Mahmudul Hasan Joy in the ninth over scoring only nine. The next falter was the wicket of the veteran Mominul Haque in the following over. Mominul was tricked by a swinger from Raymon Anton Reifer and he was caught in the mid-wicket area by West Indies skipper Joshua Da Silva.

The struggle continued through the rest of the day as no Bangladeshi batter could stand on the pitch to make their innings big.

After Mominul was out, Bangladesh skipper Saif Hassan partnered with opener Zakir Hasan for a 31-run third-wicket stand. The duo showed promise but it did not last long when Zakir was run-out on 29. At that point, Bangladesh were down to 66-3.

While Saif tried to hold his end firm, the other end saw batters come and go. Yasir Ali and Shahadat Hossain could not take their innings to double digits, making nine and three, respectively.

Later in their innings, Nurul Hassan showed positive intent but a bad choice of a shot while trying to hit Anderson Ghoel Phillip over the third wicket got him caught on 28, and Bangladesh were down to 138-7.

Tanzim Hasan Sakib and Nasum Ahmed batted out the rest of the day as they were not out for 17 and seven.

Sakib and Nasum will start the third day today from where they had left and Bangladesh would need to score 295 to avoid a follow-on.

Earlier, West Indies A scored 445-10 banking on five fifties in their first innings after winning the toss and opting to bat.

Opener Tagenarine Chanderpaul top-scored for the Caribbeans with 83 of 160 balls while skipper Silva scored another 82 off 94 balls. Kevin Sinclair, Alick Athanaze and Raymond Reifer were the other three with half-centuries.