Bangladesh batsmen Habibul Bashar and Javed Omar put on a record-breaking stand Wednesday under the searing heat on the first day of the second test against Pakistan at Arbab Niaz Stadium in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
The pair put on 167 runs for the second wicket -- an all time Bangladesh record for any wicket partnership in its short 23-test history.
The visitors finished the day at a comfortable 240 for two with Omar batting on a career-best 96. Mohammad Ashraful, one of two changes in the Bangladesh lineup, was not out on 34 after Bashar missed his century by a whisker.
Omar, who hit 16 boundaries in his unbeaten 286-ball knock, slowed down in the last session and contributed just 24 runs.
Bashar and Omar bettered their previous record -- 131 runs against South Africa earlier this year -- and denied Pakistan success for four hours as the mercury soared to 37 C during the course of the day.
On the first day of the test in Peshawar, Pakistan's captain used six bowlers, including speedster Shoaib Akhtar, in short spells. But each made mistakes and paid the penalty for bowling too short. Bashar and Omar cashed in on the loose deliveries, which gave Bangladesh an ideal opportunity to raise a healthy total.
Bashar, who scored 71 and 108 for Bangladesh in the first test last week, missed his much deserved century. He was out leg before to seamer Shabbir Ahmad in the last session after playing another supreme knock of 97 which included nine boundaries.
After electing to bat first, Bangladesh lost opener Hannan Sarkar, who flirted with Gul's delivery and edged to wicketkeeper Rashid Latif after scoring six runs within the first half hour of play.
At the end of the day's play, a confident-looking and jubilant Bashar told reporters that the hot weather did not cause any problem for him.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier