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Friday 21 October 2016

1st Test Day 2 BAN V ENG

England 293 (105.5 overs): Moeen 68, Mehedi 6-80
Bangladesh 221-5 (74 overs): Tamim 78, Moeen 2-66

England lead by 72 runs

Bangladesh moved to within 72 runs of England at 221-5 after two days of a captivating first Test in Chittagong.

Resuming on 258-7, England lost Chris Woakes to the first ball of the day and were all out for 293, debutant spinner Mehedi Hasan Miraz finishing with 6-80.

Moeen Ali claimed two wickets in the final over before lunch but Tamim Iqbal made an assured 78, with seven fours.

Gareth Batty struck in his first Test since 2005 but Mushfiqur Rahim made a stoic 48 before falling to Ben Stokes.

Bangladesh have lost all eight of their previous Test matches against England.

It is the first meeting between the teams at Test level since 2010 and Bangladesh's first match in the longest form of the game since August last year.

England frustrated in the heat

The England spinners stuck valiantly to their task, but were unable to match the consistent brilliance 18-year-old Mehedi had shown with the ball.

Returning to Test cricket after an absence of 11 years and 137 days, Batty opened the bowling, only the third time since 1928 that England have begun a first innings with a spinner.

There was no immediate fairytale as his first delivery was savagely cut to the boundary and it was Moeen - England's top-scorer with the bat - who made the breakthrough with a magical delivery that pitched on middle stump and clipped the off bail of left-hander Imrul Kayes.

Three balls later Moeen found more turn and bounce to find the edge of Mominul Haque, caught at slip via wicketkeeper Bairstow's pad.

But Moeen could not repeat his exploits for the remainder of the day and though Adil Rashid dislodged Mahmudullah in the final over before tea, he had shared a 90-run partnership with Tamim.

Left-hander Tamim, who successfully reviewed a catch to slip on 55, has now scored five fifties and two centuries in nine Test innings against England but was denied an eighth Test hundred when he got a bottom edge to 39-year-old Batty.

In the closing stages under the floodlights it was the seamers who looked more dangerous, Stokes ending an obdurate partnership of 58 by finding Mushfiqur's edge for the first wicket by a pace bowler in the match.

Bangladesh peg back England

After seeing the pitch spin so dramatically on day one, England's quest for an imposing total was immediately dented when Woakes was smartly caught at short-leg.

Stuart Broad, no stranger to the review system, had successfully overturned an lbw dismissal but was the final wicket to fall when the Ultraedge system detected the merest noise from the bat to see him caught behind off Mehedi, bowling his 40th over.

Remarkably it was the 10th occasion in which the review system was used during the innings, a new Test record.

It was also the first time since December 1987 that all 10 England wickets had fallen to spin.

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