A century for Bangladesh after five years

The situation is always chaotic when it comes to opening the innings for Bangladesh. A good start is like a dream! The opening pair changed again and again, but not the fate of Bangladesh. So there is no end to Bangladesh's frustration with the opening pair. At last the light flashed. In the first innings of Chattogram Test against Sri Lanka, Bangladesh got a pair of 100 runs with the bat of Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudul Hasan Joy.

100 runs in the opening partnership of a Test innings is nothing much. There are always 100 partnerships. But for Bangladesh, it's a matter of cutting corners. The partnership of Tamim and Joy is of absolute peace to Bangladesh. The last time the opening pair got a century stand, that was like a riddle in their eyes. In fact, after five years and 61 innings, Bangladesh got 100 runs from the opening pair.

Tamim Iqbal was also in the pair of centuries five years ago, the opponent was also Sri Lanka. Soumya Sarkar was the partner of this experienced opener. In 2017, they made an opening partnership of 117 runs in Sri Lanka. Tamim and Soumya both scored half centuries in that match. However, due to the failure of the rest of the batters, Bangladesh's first innings stopped at 312 runs. In the second innings, Bangladesh lost by a big margin of 259 runs getting all out for 198 runs.

On the last afternoon of the second day of the Chattogram Test, Bangladesh started batting. Tamim and Joy gave the team a great start. They finished the day with 76 runs in 19 overs. Tamim remained unbeaten on 35 and Joy on 31. These two openers of Bangladesh made a great start on the third day as well. Tamim and Joy were leading the team towards a big collection by overcoming the century partnership in rhythmic batting.

Like the Bangladesh team, the wait at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram was also over. Bangladesh has got the opening partnership of more than 100 runs in Tests on this ground only once before, that too eight years ago. In 2014, Tamim and Imrul put on together 224 runs against Zimbabwe. After eight years, Tamim spent the night with another partner. This is the eighth opening century stand of Bangladesh in Tests.

Meanwhile, the dashing opener and the ODI captain of the Tigers brought up his 10th century in the most elite format of gentleman's game in a fine fashion. This was Tamim's 25th overall century in all formats of international cricket.