Kyle Mayers’ second Test century has helped put West Indies in control after the second day of the second Test in St Lucia on Saturday (June 25).
After an insipid batting performance on the opening day, Bangladesh produced a strong bowling response on the second morning of the St Lucia Test that was left delicately placed with hosts West Indies still in the behind in 97 runs having lost 4 wickets.
This after Kraigg Brathwaite (51) and John Campbell put on the team’s first century opening stand in nearly four years, before Shoriful got the left-hander Campbell with a short ball.
Three off the four West Indies wickets to fall in the opening session came in a 15-ball period after Bangladesh finally succeeded in their quest to have the ball changed.
Brathwaite and Reifer looked solid in their 31-run stand before Mehidy got the West Indies skipper with a beauty to knock back the off-stump.
Khaled Ahmed then exploited the uneven bounce of the pitch and earned two drag ons as Raymon Reifer and Nkrumah Bonner fell in the same over.
From 100/0, West Indies had slipped to 132/4 with the visitors finding their voice to welcome the new batters ahead of a nervy 10-minute period before Lunch.
”I think it went pretty good for Bangladesh. We had a good start with Kraigg and John but you know I just figured that sometimes when you are playing on surfaces like this, the intent needs to be a little more positive.
I think what happened is we got ourselves in a little bit of a rocking boat as everybody hoping to get in and look for partnership and that is good but I still think that you got to be very positive in your approach and the intent should be (there) as I believe that runs are all that matters in the game and you got to look for runs.
Batting long might be good but you got to still look for runs,” chief selector Desmond Haynes told Ian Bishop at the break of lunch
but Kyle Mayers took over with a Superb knock to give the hosts into top of the second Test in St Lucia.
He looked confident batting on his own aggressive terms to bring the hosts back into the game after they were pushed by Bangladesh in the opening session.
While Mayers’ 116-run partnership with Jermaine Blackwood (40) did the majority of the damage, it was the unbeaten 92-run stand with Joshua Da Silva (26*) late in the day that really took any glimmer of hope away from Bangladesh.
And by Stumps, his unbeaten 126* took West Indies to 340 for 5, a commanding lead of 106 with five first-innings wicket still in hand.