Lunch Bangladesh 413 and 93 for 2 (Mominul 37*, Shanto 34*, Hasan 1-12) lead Pakistan 386 (Awais 103, Fazal 60, Rizwan 59, Agha 58, Mehidy 5-102, Taijul 2-46, Taskin 2-70) by 120 runs
Bangladesh weathered the loss of two early wickets, with Mominul Haque and Najmul Hossain Shanto leading another recovery with an broken 70-run partnership on the fourth morning of the first Test in Mirpur. Mohammad Abbas and Hasan Ali had Bangladesh in trouble early on when, just as in the first innings, the openers fell early in the morning session. But, armed with the buffer of a slender lead, Mominul and Shanto consolidated, and as the threat from both the new ball and the match situation eased, found run-scoring becoming easier.
The lights were on almost from the outset on an overcast morning, and the first dismissal looked like the kind a seam bowler would get on a greentop under the clouds. Abbas got it to nip back in off the surface into Mahmudul Hasan Joy's pads to hit him under the knee roll. With Pakistan constricting the scoring, they struck again through Hasan, who took advantage of the variable bounce to rear one up that caught the shoulder of Shadman Islam's bat to spoon up to gully.
The job of rebuilding fell once more to the pair primarily responsible for putting Bangladesh in this position of relative control. Mominul and Shanto merely picked up from where they had left off in the first innings, settling in as they took the sting out of Pakistan's attack. Mominul was the more cautious of the pair, while Shanto gradually began to pick up the scoring rate, every run appearing to tilt the match situation ever so slightly Bangladesh's way.
In the final half-hour of the session, the pair looked positively dominant and, in a repeat of the first innings, the runs flowed easily. Salman Agha's spin posed a threat early on, with Mohammad Rizwan dropping a sharp chance off an outside edge, but even that threat faded soon. In his final over before lunch, Agha saw Mominul leap down the wicket and whack him over his head as a session of two halves ended with the hosts the happier of the two sides.
