Kiwis close in on victory

Bangladesh v New Zealand
First Test, Day 3
October 21, 2004 at Dhaka

New Zealand claimed two wickets in the final session of the day to leave Bangladesh trailing by 184 runs with eight second wickets in hand. Daniel Vettori picked up both the wickets, those of Javed Omar and Hanan Sarkar, as Bangladesh ended the day's play at 41-2.

Earlier, Brendan McCullum guided the visitors to a 225 run first innings lead with a well composed century, his maiden in Test cricket. Resuming at 207-5, New Zealand lost only one wicket in the first session, Jacob Oram falling for toiled 23 off 123 balls.

The tail enders ably supported McCullum, all of them sharing partnerships of considerable amount of runs. McCullum's was the ninth wicket to fall, but not before he had scored 143 off 243 balls. New Zealand was bowled out the first ball after tea ending their first innings at 402.

Mohammad Rafique was the pick of the Bangladeshi bowlers, picking up 6-122, and on the way reaching 50 Test wickets, off only his 13th Test. He was supported on the other end by fellow left-arm spinner Manjural Islam Rana, who picked up 3-84.

We're extremely sorry for the unavailability of reports from Day 1 and 2.

Bangladesh 177 ao and 41-2
Nafis Iqbal 24*, DL Vettori 2-4
New Zealand 402 ao
MS Sinclair 76, BB McCullum 143, Mohammad Rafique 6-122, Manjural Islam Rana 3-84

Bangladesh trail by 184 runs with eight second innings wickets in hand.

Posted by Sudeep