Woakes upbeat despite tough day
England allrounder Chris Woakes remains confident that his team can overcome Bangladesh in the second Test at Mirpur despite surrendering a lead to the Tigers on day two.
The day would swing back and forth with the Tigers starting well before Adil Rashid and Woakes put on 99 for the ninth wicket to help give England a 24 run lead.
The Tigers cam out with attacking intent though and quickly erased England’s lead, Zafar Ansari claimed a late wicket which boosted England on a tough day with Bangladesh 128 runs ahead with seven wickets in hand.
Woakes told Sky Sports: “It was frustrating – they came out firing, their openers tend to do that here and Tamim got away from us a bit.
“Once we got him out we stemmed the flow a little. We got a couple of crucial wickets at the end, Zafar getting those two was important for us.
“I wouldn’t have liked to walk back in after playing (Mahmudullah’s) shot in the last over, but it was a big wicket for us and for Zafar on debut.
“We know we can knock these boys over, if we get the four, five, six down then we can get into the tail. Mushfiqur (Rahim), Kayes and Shakib (Al Hasan) are three big wickets.”
Woakes cracked 46 and Rashid an unbeaten 44 to pull England out of the fire and Woakes believes it could prove a vital partnership when all is said and done.
He added: “It was vital, going in to a position where we were still plenty behind, it was nice to put on an important partnership and get the team ahead slightly.
“We just tried to take the ones, hope they tried something different, and then you can put the boundary ball away.
“It was annoying I got out at the end because I thought we could have got 20 or 25 more and those runs almost feel (like they count) double, but to put us ahead is the main thing.
“We got 240 in the first innings, okay with a biggish partnership at the end, but if we can get partnerships at the top of the order then I think we can chase anything we’ve scored already.”
England lead the two match series after narrowly claiming the first Test in Chittagong.
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