Miraz hits century

Opener Tanzid Hasan was the first batter who was out on the last ball of the third over of the innings.

He could not score a run after playing 8 balls. Mushfiqur Rahim was also out for a duck like him. Except for Mehidy Hasan Miraz, none of the others scored a fifty. Miraz, however, crossed the fifty and scored an unbeaten century.

Bangladesh scored 263 runs in the first innings on the first day of the three-day warm-up match against Cricket Australia XI at the DXC Arena in Darwin on Thursday, riding on Miraz’s 109 runs.

Then, Cricket Australia XI, who came out to bat in their first innings, finished the day’s play by scoring 51 runs for 2 wickets.

Bangladesh went to play a Test in Australia after 23 years.

The first Test between Bangladesh and Australia will be held at Marrara Cricket Ground in Darwin from August 13 to August 17, and the second Test between the Tigers and the Aussies will be held at the Great Barrier Reef Arena in Mackay from August 22 to August 26.

Keeping these two matches in mind, Bangladesh Captain Najmul Hossain won the toss and decided to bat first in the three-day warm-up match on Thursday.

Despite losing Tanzid quickly, the rest of the top-order batters got off to a good start. But none of them could extend the innings. Off-spinner Corey Rocchiccioli posed a big challenge for them. Despite taking 179 wickets in 52 first-class matches, he is yet to make his international debut.

Corey dismissed four left-handed Bangladesh batter, Shadman Islam, Mominul Haque, Soumya Sarkar and Taijul Islam. In addition, the right-handed off-spinner took 6 wickets in 24 overs, dismissing Hasan Mahmud and Mushfiqur Rahim.

Najmul’s 37 runs off 53 balls was the highest among Bangladesh’s top-order batters, while opener Shadman Islam scored 31 runs off 47 balls. Although he could not extend the top-order innings, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, who was dropped to number 7, continued to fight towards the end.

Bangladesh were in danger of being all out two overs before the end of the day after losing 9 wickets for 194 runs, but Miraz with Khaled Ahmed, put on a 69-run partnership for the last wicket to take the team past 250, scoring a century.

Although Khaled was out for 15 runs off 28 balls, Miraz remained unbeaten on 109 runs off 141 balls in an innings that included 11 fours and 4 sixes.

Cricket Australia XI did not start well when they came out to bat. Opener Sam Constas was caught off the first ball of the second over of Campbell Kellaway was bowled by Taskin Ahmed in the next over.

Despite losing 2 wickets for 1 run, Australia did not lose any more wickets for the rest of the day. Kurtis Patterson and Josh Philippe put on a 50-run partnership off 58 balls.

Hasan Mahmud and Taskin Ahmed took one wicket each for four and 24 runs respectivel.