Brittle Tigers keep crumbling

For the fifth consecutive day of cricket on tour, the Bangladesh Test team were played off the park, being shot out for 149 and by the end of the second day of the second Test, saw their 205-run deficit at the change of innings swell to 224 as a rampant home side reached 19 for one.

They had the consolation of getting the wicket of Kraigg Brathwaite -- who had scored two centuries in West Indies' two previous innings of the series -- but given that Bangladesh have failed to cross 150 in their three innings on tour, the match is likely beyond them already.

It was also for the second consecutive day that the tourists started the day well but ended with West Indies' greater longer-version wherewithal widening the gap like a seasoned thoroughbred tearing away with the race against a wobbly, knock-kneed colt.

On the first day, off-spinner Mehedi Hasan Miraz took two wickets in the first session to keep things even for a session and a half but the Tigers eventually let the game drift and allowed West Indies to reach 295 for four by the close. On the second morning they managed to take the last six wickets for just 59 runs, with Mehedi Hasan Miraz taking a five-for and rookie pacer Abu Jayed scalping three for 38. However, they barely had time to recover from four sessions on the field as the batsmen failed to make the opposition bowl 50 overs, also for the third straight time on tour.

Bangladesh's innings could have been a manual of how not to play in Test matches. Their first six wickets were lost in pairs with each pair falling in the same over -- Liton Das and Mominul Haque in the seventh over from Shannon Gabriel; Shakib Al Hasan and Mahmudullah Riyad in the 24th over from Jason Holder and Tamim Iqbal and Nurul Hasan in the 37th over bowled by debutant Keemo Paul.

Only opener Tamim and number 11 Jayed could say that the quality of the delivery caused their undoing. Tamim had battled to 47 off 105 balls (four more runs than Bangladesh scored in the first innings of the first Test) when Paul, bowling from around the wicket to the left-hander, got the ball to swerve in and then jag away off the pitch towards an unprotected off stump. Jayed was bowled by West Indies skipper Holder with a ball that speared in towards leg stump, drawing a flick from the batsman, before swinging away and crashing into middle stump to give the pacer his third five-wicket haul.

Opener Liton looked good while attempting and following through with an ambitious on drive off Gabriel but there was the small matter of not connecting with the ball that found him adjudged leg-before. Replays showed that it would have gone down leg stump, but in perhaps a sign of the confused state of the batsmen, he chose not to review it.

Mominul, the Test specialist, continued that trend of confused intent by pushing in front of his body and playing across the line off the first ball he faced and ended up edging to gully for a golden duck, failing to add to the one run he scored in Antigua.

From 20 for two, a 59-run partnership between Tamim and skipper Shakib raised brief hope of a revival of the kind of batting in trying conditions that saw Bangladesh score 596 for nine in Wellington in January 2017, but that lasted as long as Shakib's discipline. With the tea break in sight, Shakib -- who had slashed Holder over gully for four in his counterpart's previous over -- was bowled off the inside edge trying another cut to a ball that started too close to the body for the shot and swung further in.

Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan departed playing an unnecessary shot. Photo: AFP

Mahmudullah fell prey as much to his own confusion as to any wiles from a very consistent Holder. Having failed to get behind the line of the ball in both his dismissals in the first Test, the right-hander overcompensated by taking a middle stump guard and then shuffling across. The result was that his pad, plonked down right in front of off and middle, got in the way of the bat as an incoming delivery thudded into it to trap him in front for the second duck of the innings.

After tea Tamim's dismissal was followed swiftly by Nurul's for the second golden duck, but the wicketkeeper-batsman who scored Bangladesh's only 50 on tour in the first Test would have survived if he reviewed as replays showed the ball to have struck his front pad outside off stump.

If the two erroneous decisions lead one to believe that Bangladesh were a touch unlucky, then it should also be remembered that Tamim was dropped at first slip off Roston Chase when on 30 and tailender Taijul Islam was bowled first ball only to be reprieved by a Holder no-ball. As Taijul scored a run-a-ball 18, those two reprieves added 35 runs to Bangladesh's score. Taijul's slice of luck came immediately after Mushfiqur Rahim ended a promising innings of 24 with an unnecessary jab that went in the air to gully to be well caught by Shai Hope.

Instead of Taijul, it was Mehedi who departed next, playing down the wrong line off a Miguel Cummins inswinger to be trapped in front. Holder had his revenge as Taijul played one shot too many and had his stumps disturbed off an inside edge to leave the score on 149 for nine. It was all over in Holder's next over.

Shakib bowled Brathwaite late in the day with an arm ball that kept low from around the wicket, but there will be little joy for the captain because he would know that for the third time on tour, his side's batting had fallen woefully short of Test standard against an attack that has been more steady than incisive.