Ebadot rocks Afghans

Ebadot Hossain took only five balls to spit the venom the pitch was offering.

His short length delivery bounced sharply and caught the Afghanistan opener off-guard, the ball bounced off his glove and Zakir Hasan dove in to take the catch.

And the next was with a short length delivery again, on the final ball of the first session of the second day as Rahmat Shah failed to deal with the ball and could only manage to sky it, which Taskin Ahmed grabbed with utter ease.

His next two came in the second session. The first was a set-up as there was only one fielder on the boundary at square leg, enticing Afsar Zazai to hit big on a short ball, which he did and found that fielder, who was Shoriful Islam.

The final wicket was again another hellish short ball as Amir Hamza was cramped for space and Mominul Haque’s brilliant one-handed grab saw the batter depart.

Ebadot ended with figures of four for 47 runs, his second-best after his heroics at Mount Maunganui in early 2022.

His wickets, though, were not just a result of the bounce offered by the pitch but also his immaculate planning as he set the batters up by bowling up the pitch and then hit them with a short ball at pace, which they simply could not deal with it.

“My wickets did not come from continuously bowling short deliveries. I made them feel doubt with bowling up the pitch and then got the wickets with surprise bouncers,” he said after the day’s play.

The pacer had the chance of gaining a second five-wicket haul in Test cricket but could not as he was not introduced to bowl in the third session when Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Taijul Islam cleaned up the Afghan tail.

The reason behind that was Bangladesh falling behind on the over rate, and because his not bowling helped the team, Ebadot was content with the four he got.

“What I got, Alhamdulillah. I couldn’t get five wickets but the thing was that we were two overs behind the over rate, so the captain was thinking about the fine attached to it and thus started the third session with two spinners. To me, the team is more important than my individual achievements,” he said.