Aminul to rescue as Bangladesh hold India

Bangladesh 239-6 v India

Bangladesh 239-6 v India

Bangladesh recovered from a poor start with some fine batting from Aminul Islam to reach 239 for 6 at the end of the first day's play in their inaugural Test match.

The home side hit back, after losing two early wickets to the Indians, to advance to 146 for 3 by tea, before Habibul Bashar, with 10 boundaries, hit his country's first Test 50. He was later caught by Sourav Ganguly off Zahir Khan on 71. The experienced former captain Akram Khan, who hit the first six of the match, was caught on 35 by Rahul Dravid off Sunil Joshi.

Al-Shahrier and the all-rounder Naimur Rahman, who came in at a difficult time after losing Akram, were out for 12 and 15 runs, respectively. But Aminul stayed with Khaled Mashud to take the score to 239 for 6 amid roars of approval from the 70,000 crowd.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board chief executive, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, said: "We are very satisfied and I recollect that India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had lower scores in their debut Test matches. We will try to set a good innings score on what we achieved here."

First day of five; Bangladesh won toss

BANGLADESH - First Innings

Shahriar Hossain c Ganguly b Joshi 12 Mehrab Hossain c Karim b Khan 4 Habibul Bashar c Ganguly b Khan 71 Aminul Islam not out 70 Akram Khan c Dravid b Joshi 35 Al Shahriar lbw b Agarkar 12 *Naimur Rahman c S S Das b Joshi 15 ÿKhaled Masud not out 3 Extras (b12 lb3 nb2) 17

Total (for 6, 90 overs) 239

To bat: Mohammad Rafiq, Hossain Hossain, Bikas Ranjan Das.

Fall: 1-18, 2-44, 3-110, 4-175, 5-196, 6-239

Bowling: Srinath 15-6-33-0 (nb2); Khan 14-4-36-2; Agarkar 17-6-46-1; Joshi 26-4-69-3; Karthik 13-4-23-0; Tendulkar 5-2-17-0.

INDIA: *S C Ganguly, S S Das, S R Tendulkar, R Dravid, S Ramesh, ÿS S Karim, A B Agarkar, J Srinath, Zaheer Khan, M Kartik, S B Joshi.

Umpires: S A Bucknor (WI), D R Sheperd (Eng).