Bangladesh strike back but locals hold upper hand

The Northern Territory Chief Minister's XI lost three wickets for five runs late on the second day to leave Bangladesh with a slim hope of reviving their fortunes after another poor batting performance. At stumps the Chief Minister's XI were were 32 for 3, with an overall lead of 82. Unless the Bangladesh bowlers cause more havoc early on the third day, their batsmen will be left with a daunting fourth-innings target.

Manjural Islam, the left-arm seam bowler, caused the early problems for the Chief Minister's XI when he had Nick Berry out for a duck in the first over of the second innings. Then, in his third, he took the key wicket of Michael Clarke for 1. In between Islam's two wickets, Ian Redpath was bowled by the medium-fast bowler Mashrafe Mortaza for a duck in Mortaza's first over.

Ashley Williams and Kenneth Vowles stopped the rot and were unbeaten on 13 and 16 respectively at the close. The slow portable pitch made runscoring extremely difficult, so the first-innings lead of 50 conceded by Bangladesh could well prove to be a crucial factor.

Bangladesh struggled throughout their innings to make any impact against a side which is not even a first-class combination. They were bowled out for 139 - hardly the ideal preparation in the last match before their first Test on Australian soil.

Hannan Sarker was the sole figure of defiance. He batted 128 minutes for his 34 - the top score of the innings - but in doing so he highlighted the battle with concentration that the Bangladesh players have had ever since making their appearance on the Test stage. Nurtured on one-day cricket, they have still to acquire the temperament to play consistently long innings.

At lunch Bangladesh were 56 for 3, but they had slumped to 120 for 8 by tea. Alok Kapali scored 21 and the last pair offered some token resistance, but it was too little against an attack which played to the conditions perfectly. Eight bowlers were used by Northern Territory, and while he picked up only one wicket for seven runs, Brian McAdam, the former North Melbourne AFL player, bowled 10 overs for that.

Bradley Hatton took 2 for 20 off his 12 overs of medium-pace, while the Australian one-day offspinner Nathan Hauritz took 2 for 32 from 21 overs.