Sylhet Test : Bangladesh face uphill task as Sri Lanka rewrite rare record

In the history of Test cricket spanning more than 150 years, there were only two pairs of batters who have scored centuries in each innings of the same Test. Now, Sri Lankans Dhananjaya de Silva and Kamindu Mendis have done the same for Sri Lanka in the ongoing Test in Sylhet against Bangladesh, etching their names in the Test cricket history.

Fueled by those centuries, Sri Lanka posted a mammoth 418 in their second innings, setting Bangladesh a big target of 510 – a total never before successfully chased in Test cricket.

The first instance of this remarkable achievement was in 1974 when Australian brothers Ian Chappell and Greg Chappell accomplished it against New Zealand in Wellington. Four decades later, Pakistan’s Misbah Ul Haque and Azhar Ali replicated the feat against Australia in Abu Dhabi.

Now, a decade after Misbah and Azhar’s display, Dhananjaya and Kamindu have done the same, leaving Bangladesh in a precarious position. The hosts were bowled out for a meager 188 in reply to Sri Lanka’s first-innings total of 280.

In the first innings, Bangladesh displayed a lean batting show. Most of their top-order batters failed to settle down in the middle. At the stroke of day one, Taijul Islam came in to stop the floodgate of wickets falling, and eventually, he came out to be the highest runs getter for the hosts with 47.

Sri Lanka secured a 92-run lead in the first innings and they built up on that. In the first innings, Sri Lanka lost five wickets in the first session, but from there, they wrote a comeback story riding on the centuries of Dhananjaya and Kamindu. They stood strong again for their team.

While Dhananjaya posted 108, Kaminud ended up on 164– best in his Test career so far.