Tea Pakistan 81 for 3 (Ayub 42*, Shakeel 28*, Shoriful 2-12) vs Bangladesh

In doing so, Ayub and Shakeel may have exposed one structural shortcoming in Bangladesh’s attack. Unlike Pakistan, who have gone into this Test match with four frontline seamers, Bangladesh picked three seamers and two spin-bowling allrounders.

The offspinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz, introduced at the start of the 14th over with two left-handers at the crease, bore the brunt of a calculated counterattack, conceding 24 in his first four overs. He didn’t bowl badly, but with no real help for the spinners this early in the contest, Ayub and Shakeel went after him, using their full reach to sweep him clinically off a good length.

As the session – which began after a four-hour delay owing to overnight rain and damp patches in the outfield – drew to a close, the early moisture in the pitch seemed to dissipate somewhat too, and even the fast bowlers began taking a bit of punishment. The express quick Nahid Rana, picked ahead of the more experienced Khaled Ahmed, went for 22 in his four overs, and was driven sumptuously down the ground by both Shakeel and Ayub when he overpitched.

Release shots of that kind were in short supply when Pakistan began their innings, as Shoriful Islam and Hasan Mahmud hammered away on a good length in conditions where the ball swung, seamed and occasionally lifted off damp areas on the pitch. Both beat the bat regularly in the early overs, and didn’t have to wait long before the breakthrough came.

It came via a wide outswinger, not quite a half-volley, that Abdullah Shafique chased after being kept to just two runs off his first 13 balls. His drive turned into an aerial slice, and Zakir Hasan grabbed it spectacularly, throwing himself full-length to his right at gully.

The left-armer Shoriful tested both Ayub and Pakistan captain Shan Masood with his line in the fifth-stump channel, mostly swinging the ball away from the left-handers but getting the odd one to nip back in off the pitch. One of these nip-backers sent back Masood, though in contentious circumstances. Masood pushed forward to defend, bat and pad fairly close together, and the ball kissed one or both on its way to keeper Litton Das, who appealed vociferously for caught-behind. Though he wasn’t given out on the field, Bangladesh had their man ruled out on review, with TV umpire Michael Gough ruling that a spike on Ultra-Edge was evidence of ball on bat, though there seemed to be a chance that it had missed the inside edge and brushed the flap of the pad instead.

Having had that bit of fortune going their way, Bangladesh had another soon after, when Babar Azam fell for a duck to an innocuous delivery, tickling an off-target inswinger from Shoriful down the leg side, into the left glove of an acrobatically diving Litton.