Nathan Lyon set a world record, Matthew Wade produced two of his best moments behind the stumps for Australia and Pat Cummins toiled manfully to carry the burden of being his side’s lone paceman. However, Bangladesh’s captain Mushfiqur Rahim provided the spinal contribution of the innings to keep the hosts afloat on an enervating day one in Chittagong.Nathan Lyon set a world record, Matthew Wade produced two of his best moments behind the stumps for Australia and Pat Cummins toiled manfully to carry the burden of being his side’s lone paceman. However, Bangladesh’s captain Mushfiqur Rahim provided the spinal contribution of the innings to keep the hosts afloat on an enervating day one in Chittagong.Needing a win to avoid handing Bangladesh only their fourth Test series victory, Australia’s selection of just one fast bowler in Pat Cummins left them relying heavily on their spinners on a surface that so far has offered precious little turn or variable bounce.In fact, Australia’s selection seemed geared better towards that previous surface than this one, including a third spin bowler in Steve O’Keefe, who bowled to the sort of level that might be reasonably expected of a bowler who this time last week was watching on his couch in Sydney, seemingly at peace with the conclusion that his Test career was at an end. At the same time, Usman Khawaja was left to wonder how much better he might have fared on a pitch that allowed rather more liberties for batsmen.All this made the captain Steven Smith grateful that Lyon bowled with impressive accuracy and persistence to claim the first four wickets of the match through lbw verdicts, a first in Test match history. The last two of which arrived either side of lunch ended promising starts by Soumya Sarkar and Mominul Haque. Bangladesh took a conservative approach in line with their selection of no fewer than eight batsmen in the Chittagong XI, and it took the arrival of Sabbir Rahman to join Mushfiqur for a more nimble tack to be taken by the batsmen.Sabbir played some of the day’s most fluent strokes in a stand ultimately worth 105 and ended only when Wade accomplished an outstanding legside stumping when the batsman overbalanced after attempting a pull shot. Wade celebrated with all the glee of a wicketkeeper who knew he had influenced proceedings, but also the relief of a man who was in serious consideration to be dropped for a part-timer in Peter Handscomb.Australia must avoid defeat in order to avoid dropping to sixth on the ICC Test rankings, their lowest spot since the system was introduced in 2003. Knowing this, the selectors dropped Khawaja and replaced him with the allrounder Hilton Cartwright, whose ability to bowl seamers allowed for the recall of O’Keefe, the injury replacement for Josh Hazlewood. The hosts included an extra batsman in Mominul at the expensive of the seam bower Shafiul Islam, meaning both sides chosen only one frontline paceman each. – Cricinfo
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