Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka, 2018: 2nd Test, Day 1 – Statistical Highlights

After a pale draw in the first Test match between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in Chittagong, the 2nd Test in Dhaka began with 14 wickets on the first day. On a track that turned from the first session itself, the Bangladesh left-arm spinners Abdur Razzaq and Taijul Islam took four wickets each to restrict Sri Lanka to 222/10. The home team lost wickets on harmless wickets in the challenging conditions as they were reduced to 56/4 before stumps.

All the stats and numbers that were recorded during the first day’s play of the Dhaka Test:

2 – Only the 2nd time in the history of Test cricket where the first two overs were bowled by the spinners. Bangladesh opened with the off-spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz and left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak. India opened with two spinners in the first innings of the 1964 Kanpur Test match against England.

4/63 – Abdur Razzak’s bowling figures on his first day in International cricket after four years. In the 12 Test matches Razzak played till 2014, he had best figures of 3/93 in the Test cricket.

5 – Number of times in the last ten innings at home that Bangladesh opened the bowling with spinners at both the ends. They made the spinners open the bowling in three out of four innings in the 2016 England series and in the 2nd innings of the Dhaka Test against Australia last year.

66 – Number of balls bowled by Mustafizur Rahman in Sri Lanka’s innings; the only pacer for Bangladesh in this game. The 66 balls are the fewest bowled by pacers in the first innings of a Test match since the 1998 Galle Test where Sri Lankan pacers bowled 42 balls in the first innings against New Zealand.

101 – Number of wickets for Suranga Lakmal in Test cricket. He became the 7th Sri Lankan player to take 100 Test wickets. Lakmal needed 44 matches for the milestone the slowest among the specialist bowlers.

2007 – Dinesh Chandimal became the first Sri Lankan captain to bag a golden in Test cricket since Mahela Jayawardene in the 2007 Hobart Test against Australia. Chandimal and Jayawardene are the only Sri Lankan Test captains with golden ducks since 2002. Chandimal joined the likes of Denesh Ramdin and Stuart Carlisle to bag golden duck as a Test captain against Bangladesh.