Friday, October 21st, 2016

Double Strike For Moeen On Evenly Balanced Day In Chittagong

Double Strike For Moeen On Evenly Balanced Day In Chittagong

Moeen Ali struck twice in his opening over of an evenly balanced second day in the Bangladesh-England First Test in Chittagong.

The Worcestershire all-rounder followed up his fighting 68 yesterday with figures of 2-66 from 19 overs.

His former Worcestershire team-mate Gareth Batty – playing his first Test since 2005 when he was a player at New Road – ousted top scorer Tamin Iqbal for 78 as Bangladesh closed on 221-5 in reply to England's 293 all out.

Former Worcestershire all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan was unbeaten on 31 at the close.

Moeen was introduced into the attack five minutes before lunch and made a double breakthrough in the space of four balls.

His second delivery undid Imrul Kayes (21) who was beaten by a quicker ball which nipped past the outside edge and hit the top of off stump.

Then with the fifth ball of the over Mominul Haque (0) also could not handle a delivery which turned and bounced and was caught off the shoulder of the bat at gulley.

Moeen twice came close to dismissing Tamin Iqbal who scored his seventh half century in nine Test innings against England.

On 28 he carved a delivery through the fingers of Adil Rashid diving to his left at point.

Then on 55 Tamin was given out caught at slip off Moeen only for the decision to be reviewed and replays showed the ball had deflected off the elbow.