OBHAI ^he fate th6 on8°*n8 one’°ff Test match Ml' between Bangladesh and Afghanistan was Pretty clear after Saturday's third day, with the hosts having only themselves to blame for being on the verge of losing to newcomers in the Test arena.

Skipper Shakib Al Hasan had said after the second day that the pitch was exactly the opposite of what they wanted, yet the visiting bowlers in Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Zahir Khan and Qais Ahmed had much more success than the home spinners — after the team management decided to name an eleven without a pacer — in their own conditions. Their ploy on the fourth day yesterday, to pair left-handed and right-handed batsmen regardless of where the players normally bat, continued in the vein of their captain's words or their tactics not quite making sense.

Set a huge target of 398, Bangladesh sent out the right-handed Liton Das to open the innings instead of Soumya Sarkar with the left-handed Shadman Islam and stuck to the strategy for the first four batsmen.

It was right-hander Mosaddek Hossain, who had never batted above number seven, and not regular number three Mominul Haque who strode out at the fall of Liton's wicket. After Mosaddek failed to implement the plan -which presumably was to disrupt the Afghans' bowling rhythm - and succumbed to a suicidal stroke, fellow righthander Mushfiqur Rahim took his place. The Tigers finally abandoned their right-left tactic when Mushfiqur departed and the left-handed Mominul came out.

Even Afghanistan wicketkeeper Afsar Zazai was surprised by the shuffling around of batsmen.

'I think they were trying to make right and left combination because of Nabi, so with two lefthanders at the crease it's easy to get them [out]. I think that was their planning but we didn't care about it that much. It's good but it didn't work for them. 1 was asking one of their batsmen whether Soumya Sarkar was injured. He said no. Then 1 asked why he hadn't come to bat and he didn't answer," Zazai told reporters after the day's play.

Shakib was also asked about the not-so-fruitful ploy, and the champion cricketer tried to defend it by saying that their game plan was right but the execution went wrong.

"The thing was they had a pace bowler while Nabi was supposed to bowl from the other end. The pace bowler might hold for four-five overs and contain runs to make the ball a bit older. Hie good thing about having a rightleft combination is that, if you noticed, Nabi did not pick up a wicket in the first spell, while he did manage to pick a wicket in the first spell of the first innings. We didn't get success because those who were supposed to play big innings were unable to do that. It's not that there was a problem in the planning.

“1 even discussed yesterday [Saturday] whether we should send two right-handers and I wanted Mosaddek to open the innings. As it was not entirely my decision, Shadman went out to open and he batted well. We came to the ground with that plan in the team meeting this morning and everyone had faith in it," said Shakib.