West Indies fast bowler Jermaine Lawson smiles with the man of the match award after West Indies defeat Bangladesh by an innings and 310 runs in the first Test in Dhaka yesterday. Lawson took an extraordinary six wickets in 15 deliveries without conceding a run as Bangladesh crashed to an innings-and-310-run defeat. - ReutersDHAKA, Bangladesh, CMC:
YOUNG PACER Jermaine Lawson produced a sensational six-wicket burst that fired the West Indies to an innings and 310-run victory over Bangladesh late on the third day of their first test match at the Bangabandhu Stadium yesterday.
The 20-year-old Lawson, playing in only his third Test match, returned extraordinary figures of six for three off 6.5 overs with four maidens as little-rated Bangladesh collapsed meekly to defeat and their lowest ever Test score.
Bangladesh, trailing by 397 runs on first innings, tumbled to 87 all out, losing their last seven wickets for a mere seven runs in 31 balls, as the West Indies powered into an unbeatable 1-0 lead in the two-match series.
Veteran pacer Vasbert Drakes had started the slide before tea with a three-wicket blitz that rattled the top of the order, after the West Indies, behind an unbeaten 91 from Ridley Jacobs, had carried their first innings score to a colossal 536 all out.
Drakes, on his Test debut, struck twice in his fifth over and again in his seventh as Bangladesh repeated the shaky start they had to their first innings.
He broke the brisk 30-run opening stand when Hannan Sarkar was caught by Daren Ganga at gully for 25, and four balls later, he bowled number three batsman Mohammad Ashraful (0) without addition to the score.
Fourteen runs later, Anwar Hossain, playing no shot, was bowled for 12 - his off-stump knocked over by the 33-year-old Drakes, who ended with three for 19 off nine overs.
Habibul Bashar and Aminul Islam posted an innings-best 36 runs for the fourth wicket after tea that ended when left-arm pacer Pedro Collins (1-30) trapped Bashar (22) leg before wicket at 80 for four.
Man-of-the-match Lawson then ripped through the middle and lower order as Bangladesh plunged to their 10th consecutive Test defeat and 15th in 16 Test matches.
The vibrant Jamaican pacer dislodged Islam (12) and captain Khaled Mashud (0) with successive balls and sent back Alok Kapali (0) with the last ball of the same over - all through leg before wicket decisions.
In his sixth over, Lawson had Enamul Haque caught behind without scoring, and struck twice in his seventh over, smashing the stumps of Tapash Baisya (0) and Talha Jubair (0), in a hasty finish to the first ever test match between these two teams.
Five of the last six Bangladesh batsmen failed to score.
From an overnight 400 for five, responding to the paltry Bangladesh first innings score of 139, the West Indies had gathered 93 runs in morning session while losing three wickets.
Jacobs added 40 runs for the sixth wicket with Ganga, before posting 36 with Drakes and 40 in an eighth-wicket alliance with Darren Powell, who was stumped last ball before the lunch-break attempting to hit his second six.
Ganga added just six runs to his overnight score before he was run out for 40 -- with five boundaries - attempting an irrational single, but Drakes (15) and Powell (16) helped stretch the Caribbean side's innings.
Collins (13) joined Jacobs for a 34-run ninth-wicket stand, but Lawson was unable to see his captain through to a third Test century and was trapped leg before wicket for one.
Jacobs, leading the team in the absence of Carl Hooper, who is missing the series after a recent knee operation, had faced 137 balls and hit 11 boundaries when the innings folded with him nine short of a hundred.
Pacer Talha Jubair finished as top bowler for Bangladesh with three for 135, supported by Mohammad Ashraful (2-57) and Tapash Baisya (2-117).
Ramnaresh Sarwan's maiden Test century (119) had fuelled the formidable West Indies score, and Bangladesh, who crashed on Sunday to their sub-150 score under the attack of pacers Collins (5-26) and Drakes (4-58), need to show monumental improvement to avoid a series whitewash when the second Test starts in Chittagong on Monday, Sunday night Caribbean time.
