Mount Maunganui: Ebadot Hossain bowled Bangladesh to the brink of a famous victory over World Test Champion New Zealand in a fiery spell Tuesday on the fourth day of the first cricket test.
On a pitch on which Bangladesh and New Zealand collectively amassed 786 runs in their first innings — with the tourists taking a 130-run lead — Ebadot reduced New Zealand to 147-5 at stumps, a lead of only 17 runs.
After dismissing first innings century-maker Devon Conway for 13, Ebadot removed Will Young (69), Henry Nicholls (0) and Tom Blundell (0) in the space of six balls to fortify the strong position the Bangladesh batters had created.
“The first thing to know about Ebadot as a person is that he only came to cricket about five years ago,” Bangladesh’s West Indies-born bowling coach Ottis Gibson said. “He won a fast-bowling competition somewhere and two years later he was playing international cricket.
“He’s a joy to work with because he’s enthusiastic and he wants to learn so much. When his confidence is high he can bowl spells like this.”
New Zealand was just hanging on at stumps in the face of Ebadot’s aggressive swing bowling. Veteran Ross Taylor, in his penultimate test match before retirement, was 37 and allrounder Rachin Ravindra was 6.
Bangladesh hasn’t won any of its previous 43 matches in New Zealand across all three formats and wasn’t expected to test New Zealand in this match in the absence of veteran players such as Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah.
But the tourists have steadily got on top of New Zealand, and Ebadot rammed home their advantage on Tuesday, finishing the day with figures of 4-39.
Bangladesh first dismissed New Zealand for 328, claiming the last five wickets for 70 runs to leave it short of a par score on a docile pith at the Bay Oval. Bangladesh replied with 458, lifted by the contributions of captain Mominul Haque (88), Liton Das (86), Mahmudul Hasan Joy (78) and Najmul Hossain Shanto (64).
