Mominul Haque and Nasir Hossain hit fifties to put Bangladesh Green Team post 283 runs in their first innings on Thursday in their three-day practice match against Bangladesh Red in Chittagong.
Mushfiqur Rahim’s Red Team, who made 140 in their first innings, finished the second day on 24-1 to trail by 119 runs at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong.
Mominul, who was cut out from the Tigers’ last Test match in Sri Lanka, made his case stronger for a return to the starting line-up with a fluent innings of 73 runs, facing 135 balls.
But he was dismissed by Saqlain Sajib to miss out on a deserving century though his 60-run partnership for the fourth wicket with Nasir put his side in a good position.
Nasir also failed to convert his innings to a century as he was out for 62 off Nayeem Hasan.
After the end of day’s play, Nasir claimed that he would feel rather happy if he could score a hundred in the innings though he was not worried about his selection in the main squad against Australia for the forthcoming series.
‘I will feel rather happy if I could score a hundred in the innings because you can only improve your personal skills spending more times at the crease,’ the 25-year-old batsman told the reporters after the end of second day’s play.
‘I’m not thinking of anything about my selection in the team. This is just a practice match and I’m trying to get as much output as I can from the match in such condition.
‘As far as I am concerned I haven’t played any longer version match for a while so I tried to lengthen my innings. I think I could score more runs but unfortunately I lost my wicket,’ Nasir added.
But the all-rounder thought the match would help the Tigers to make a better show in the Test series.
‘I think the practice match will help us more than what we practiced and trained earlier. We haven’t played the longer version matches for a while and those who would play against Australia in the upcoming series, it would help them a lot whether he was a bowler or a batsman,’ he said.