Bangladesh produced their best batting display of this one-sided series to take the 2nd Test at Chester le Street into the third day, closing overnight on 296-8 and still requiring another 47 runs to avoid an innings defeat.

England had the visitors seven wickets down at the official close of play at 1800 and called for an extra half-hour to finish the game but managed just one more wicket as Aftab Ahmed (67*) and Tapash Baisya (18*) resisted their best efforts.

England had built a lead of 334 runs by lunch around Ian Bell's technically proficient first Test hundred (162*), with Graham Thorpe (66*) in support. It had appeared to be enough, as they assumed that Bangladesh would fold in their habitual fashion in two sessions.

It was an understandable feeling as Bangladesh's three innings to date in the series had lasted for 38.2, 39.5 and 39.5 overs respectively, and England's dominance in the morning session, in which Bell and Thorpe added 162 runs, suggested more of the same with the ball after lunch.

But it didn't work out quite as they planned. Bangladesh made easily their highest score of the series, most of the damage coming in three fine knocks from Habibul Bashar (62), Javed Omar (71), and Ahmed as they took advantage of the strangely placid pitch and jaded England bowling.

Omar held things together again, mixing judicious defence with attacking strokeplay, and driving Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard for boundaries on both sides of the pitch.

But his weakness is short-pitched bowling and a rearing Harmison bouncer flicked his glove as he ducked nervously under the ball, and he was out for 71 with the score on 125-4. He had already been dropped by Geraint Jones on 54 after making a similar error against Flintoff.

After Omar's departure Bashar became the dominant figure, proving to English crowds that he possesses a spectacular, if undisciplined talent.

The captain's batting relied almost exclusively on his attacking instincts and the boundary ropes was always foremost in his impulsive mind. He was all quicksilver wrist-play and improvised shots, slicing cuts through the slips off Jones, or pulling Harmison in delightfully unorthodox fashion.

He scored nearly all his runs in boundaries and reached his fifty from only 32 balls with 10 fours, four of them coming in one over from Jones, who was well short of his best.

In the end a fast offcutter from Flintoff, the most energetic and accurate of the England bowlers, defeated his defence and trapped him lbw, the fifth man out with the score on 195-5.

After Bashar's wicket, England still struggled to make further inroads as Khaled Mashud (25) and Ahmed put on 40 before Hoggard trapped Mashud lbw in what was scheduled to be the penultimate over of the day.

The wicket seemed to energise England as they sensed it might be possible to finish the game if the extra half hour were called for and Hoggard promptly bowled Mohammad Rafique (2) with a fast offcutter to make it 245-7.

The umpires allowed the extra half hour to be played and it seemed justified when Thorpe took a fantastic reflex catch at short leg to dismiss Anwar Hossain for a duck and it was 251-8 with 20 minutes left.

But Ahmed's eye was in by now and he hooked Flintoff for six then cut him for four to go to his fifty from only 49 balls before driving him straight down the ground as 14 came from the over.

Bangladesh's unpredictable strokeplay was in marked contrast to the controlled and orthodox innings Ian Bell had played earlier in the day.

His first Test century came from only 168 balls yet, unlike Bashar, he rarely took risks and never looked like getting out until he began to throw the bat indiscriminately as England chased a declaration target.

Even when he began hitting out Bell rarely departed from classical orthodoxy and even when driving a six from Ahmed high over midwicket, did not hit the ball harder than necessary.

It is not Bell's style to unduly exert himself, rather along the lines of that other great classical technician Len Hutton, who once said he hit the ball only hard enough to reach the ropes. Bell scores hundreds without appearing to break sweat, Boycott-like in studious defence, the ball unerringly finding the middle of his bat.

But it is an extraordinary trick he plays on the spectator because Bell is anything but Boycott-like in the speed he scores. He made 105 runs before lunch, the first Englishman to do so since Les Ames against South Africa in 1935, at the Oval.

He pulled the first ball he faced on the second day past square leg from a Baisya long-hop and continued putting away the many loose balls from Bangladesh with excellent placement and timing on both sides of the wicket.

His 100 came up just after midday with a crisply struck midwicket drive from Hossain. It had taken him 132 balls in only a shade over three hours and signalled a new urgency to his play as he began playing nearly a shot a ball.

Thorpe was not nearly so dominant, striking seven boundaries in his 85-ball 66*, but there were some crisp pulls and cuts off the seamers and dismissive drives on the legside off spinner Mohammad Rafique. He looked to be working his way into some good form for the Ashes series

4 Jun, 2005