Mominul prevails against Ashwin and conditions to bring up 13th ton

Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, one of India's greatest, was the last captain to win a toss and elect to bowl in a Kanpur Test. Pataudi opted to take the field against England in 1964. No team since then opted to bowl first in Kanpur that is until current India skipper Rohit Sharma in the ongoing second Test against Bangladesh.

India had the inkling on how to use the conditions at the Green Park Stadium. There is help in the surface over the first two days and picking three seamers attests to that, sources with knowhow of how Ranji Trophy games go, informed.

India were aware of the ground producing a lot of draws. The last Test played here saw New Zealand scrape to a draw by just a wicket, bad light ending play slightly early. It is said that runs are hard to come by at the ground due to difficult conditions. 300 is considered a pretty good score.

The slow and low nature of the wicket also comes into play as some deliveries keep low.

Given Kanpur's draw record, India would stand to lose eight points in case of a draw. But Bangladesh's pace trio from Chennai was in mind a day before Kanpur Test. All three of Hasan Mahmud, Taskin Ahmed and Nahid Rana had spells causing India top-order a great deal of trouble in Chennai.

With that in mind, sources claim that grass was trimmed down by four millimeters a day before the Test. Only 2 millimeters of grass were kept in the end. India were counting on the help the seamers usually get even with that bit of grass left.

However, rain saw just 35 overs in the first day before Day 2 and 3 got washed out. It was Mominul Haque who showed the way, sticking to a process and carrying Bangladesh past 100 in testing conditions in Kanpur on Day one. And today, Mominul became the second batsman from Bangladesh to hit a ton in India.

Today the wicket had a barren look to it, meaning the rain of two days and the sun coming out, made for some better batting conditions. While ball swung around and seamed on Day 1, at present Jasprit Bumrah and others saw deliveries that tried to sneak in low as is often the case in Mirpur.

Mominul had prevailed in both scenarios. On Day 1 he survived India's supreme pace attack who got help initially by leaving well and calculating the risk and reward of high-percentage shots. Today he swept spinners for fun and pulled comfortably in a much flatter deck even if bounce was not always true.

When on 71, 21 percent of his runs had come in pull and 12 percent in sweep. By the time Mominul swept Ravichandran Ashwin for four to bring up his 13th Test ton, his sweep ratio had gone up higher.

He would consider himself lucky when Virat Kohli at first slip dropped him off Mohammed Siraj in 95 -- a tough chance diving to the left.

Yet, Mominul dominated proceedings so clearly this morning at Green Park, that even three of Bangladesh's main batters in Mushfiqur Rahim, Liton Das and Shakib Al Hasan going cheaply today have not seen Bangladesh innings crumble.

Most importantly, if Aswhin had an edge on Mominul after first Test in Chennai, today he showed that his sweeps can hurt the right-arm spinner.

Ravindra Jadeja was in fact just nonchalantly hit for six over the umpire's head which allowed Mominul to get into the 90s. The cracking sweep off Ashwin to bring up hundred just evidence of prevailing in Kanpur conditions against a bowler who produced an insane delivery earlier in Chennai to beat Mominul all ends up. This time Mominul had an answer.