One last day to battle through

Imagining the prospect of drawing a Test against India in their own den can give any of Bangladesh's cricket fans, be it an abject flatterer or a perennial critic, the jitters.

And it will not be an exaggeration to state that the emotion among the players is not too different. If anything, they will probably be feeling twice the heat when they embark upon the final day of Bangladesh's inaugural Test series against India in front of an expected 20,000 home supporters on a track that has begun to assist the likes of Ravichandran Aswin and Ravindra Jadeja.

However, the challenge for Bangladesh today is likely to be more mental than technical.

They did finish the day on 103 for three and going into the final day, the hosts will remain the clear favourites. However, the fact remains that the wicket at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium is still good enough for batting.

While it did produce some slow turners throughout Day Four, the likes of Ashwin or Jadeja did not really bowl anything that was unplayable.

When the Bangladesh openers came out to bat in their second innings, having been set a target of 459, they did not really seem to play freely. Their target was to see through the tea session cautiously. That led to them curbing a number of their shots and made them seem a bit nervous, but the pitch, in essence, was not doing a lot.

Tamim Iqbal was a tad unlucky when he inside-edged a delivery to the gully fielder for three. His partner, Soumya Sarkar, looked confident when he was playing the drives and the pulls. However, a badly timed defensive stroke on 42 led to him edging a slow turner by Jadeja for Ajinkya Rahane to take a blinder at slip.

Mominul Haque was the last man to depart yesterday and he too left in similar fashion. His foot movement was not great and as a result Ashwin managed to get him caught at slip.

Once Shakib Al Hasan arrived at the crease, he started going down the track to Ashwin, not necessarily to beat him down the ground, but to disturb his line and to merely just tuck the singles. Having noticed, Mahmudullah started doing the same towards the end and the pair seemed a lot more confident.

When Bangladesh step out to bat today, the will need to follow a similar policy. It is very difficult to bat out the entire day by just being in a shell, unless that is your natural style of play.

Yes, they will have to be cautious, especially in the morning session today, but they have got to punish the bad balls at the same time.

Perhaps the best example to follow is that of Mushfiqur Rahim's. The Bangladesh skipper put in a magnificent effort yesterday to keep the visitors in the game. He scored a fine 127 and with 262 deliveries ended up facing the most number of balls in the match.

Mushfiqur was patient and aggressive at the same time. He did not panic when Mehedi Hasan Mirazwas bowled by an in-swinging delivery from Bhuvneshwar Kumar in only the fourth ball of the day.

He carried on in his merry way and gave the tail-enders, Taijul Islam and Taskin Ahmed, plenty of strike. He hooked Ishant Sharma, who had been bowling him bouncers throughout the innings, for a six in the 115th over and then flicked Umesh Yadav for a four through fine leg to reach his century off 235 balls.

After that, he absolutely dismissed Ashwin in style, hitting him down-the track and through cow corner quite regularly. He was aggressive, but cautious at the same time.

However, he kept losing partners and was eventually the last man to get out. He was caught behind while attempting to sweep Ashwin and Bangladesh got bundled out for 388.

Even though India had a lead of 299 runs, they decided against following on and batted for a session. Courtesy of Cheteshwar Pujara's 54, they hammered 159 runs in between lunch and tea before declaring.

The wicket's still pretty good. Bangladesh have batted on pitches which have turned a mile during the England series and, ideally speaking, they should be able to negotiate the slow turn in Hyderabad today. However, the question remains as to whether they can ace the mental game.