Sarwan comes of age
Dailystarnews.com

Ramnaresh Sarwan's quest for his maiden Test hundred ended at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

The right-hander scored 119 as the West Indies piled up a commanding 400-5 at stumps on the second day of the first Test.
Darren Ganga, who is desperately trying to cement his place in the team, was batting on 43 along with his skipper Ridley Jacobs on 12.

It was a delightful double for the 22-year-old batsman from Guyana at the big bowl, where he also scored his first hundred in the abridged version of the game on December 2.

The exploits of the extremely talented batsman in his 28th Test appearance gave the visitors a lead of 261 runs against a battered Bangladesh, who managed only 139 in their first innings before being bowled out 25 minutes after the tea break on the opening day.

Sarwan and Marlon Samuels, another young gun in the impressive Caribbean batting line-up, continued from where the left-handed openers Chris Gayle and Wavell Hinds had left off early in the morning.

Hinds and Gayle added nine runs to the overnight total of 118 before both were dismissed by right-arm paceman Taposh Baishya in the seventh over of the day.

Gayle was first to go after completing his ninth half-century, slashing a wide delivery outside the off stump into the safe hands of wicketkeeper Khaled Mashud.

Hinds added two runs to his overnight score of 73 before mistiming an attempted pull to Naimur Rahman at mid-wicket.

Slow left-armer Enamul Hoque then removed Shivnarine Chanderpaul with his second delivery that took the edge of the bat of the left-hander who was playing forward defensively. Chanderpaul scored only four in his first match of the tour after missing the one-day series due to injury on his right palm.

Bangladesh's success however ended at that point as Sarwan and Samuels steadily rebuilt the innings putting on 176 runs for the fourth wicket.

The pair were completely at ease against the friendly Bangladesh bowling attack and looked all set to complete their hundreds complementing each other into the nervous nineties.

But Samuels, while on 91, was beaten all ends up by a quicker deliver from young paceman Talha Jubair that trapped the 21-year-old Jamaican in front of the wicket. Samuels struck 15 boundaries in his polished 175-ball knock.

Sarwan though was not ready to resign until he reached the magical three-figure mark, sneaking a single between slip and gully off Enamul. He clubbed 19 fours in his masterly innings with shots all around the ground before flaying Talha at deep third man where Naimur took a comfortable catch.

Talha, who showed some fire among the Bangladeshi bowlers, was unfortunate not to have his third wicket with the second new ball when umpire David Shepherd turned down a confident lbw appeal against Jacobs.

The distinguished English umpire was convinced that the ball hit the bat of Jacobs, then on 4, first though replays showed otherwise.

(c) Dailystarnews.com

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