Twitter Reactions: Tamim Iqbal, Najmul Hossain Shanto lead the charge for Bangladesh on opening day

Bangladesh, without a doubt, would be the happier side after the first day’s play of the opening Test in Pallekele. Dimuth Karunaratne’s Sri Lanka, on the other hand, had to toil hard on a placed surface. At the end of Day one, the visitors managed 302 runs for the loss of two wickets in their 90 overs. The Tigers’ batters took the patient route and hardly allowed the hosts to get under their skin.

Tamim blaze away

The visiting team got off to the worst possible start as left-arm pacer Vishwa Fernando didn’t allow Saif Hassan to open his account. Saif took the DRS, but the decision remained in the fielding team’s favour. Tamim Iqbal and Najmul Hossain Shanto steadied the ship and carried their team through to lunch with the score at 106 in 27 overs. Tamim looked fluent as he got a half-century off 53 balls.

Tamim was unlucky to not have gotten to his ton. The southpaw became Fernando’s second victim after scoring 90 off 101 balls with 15 fours. Shanto was the more patient of the two as he racked up his half-century off 120 deliveries in the second session. Tamim and Shanto stitched together a partnership of 144 runs for the second wicket and brought Bangladesh back into the encounter.

Shanto goes big

The third and final session completely belonged to the Tigers as they didn’t let a wicket go down. The batters put their heads down and kept milking the Lankan bowling without much fuss. Shanto has been greeted with a lot of flak of late, but he amends, reaching his maiden Test ton off 235 balls.

The left-handed batter stayed unbeaten on 126 runs with the help of 14 fours and a massive six. Shanto got the apt support from his skipper, Mominul Haque, who didn’t have a rush of blood either. Mominul got to his half-century off 117 balls and turned out to be the apt foil for his partner.

The captain played until the very end and scored an unbeaten 150-ball 64 with six fours. The duo has already put on 150 runs for the third wicket off 51.3 overs and they would want to carry on with the good work on day two as well.

Here’s how the netizens reacted to Bangladesh’s dominance: