Bangalore: Afghanistan showed that they are not out of place in the longest format of cricket as their bowlers scripted a gritty fightback against India in the historic one-off Test at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here Thursday. Bludgeoned by twin tons from Shikhar Dhawan (107, 96b, 19×4, 3×6) and Murali Vijay (105, 153b, 15×4, 1×6) early on, the Afghan bowlers hit back to claim five wickets in the last session on a rain-interrupted day to leave the hosts a tad uncomfortable at 347 for six.
Dhawan and Vijay put on 168 runs for the opening wicket and at that point of time Afghanistan were definitely looking out of place. Then Vijay and KL Rahul (54, 64b, 8×4) added another 112 runs for the second wicket and the Indians were looking like running away with the game. But once both were dismissed by pacer Yamin Ahmadzai (2/32), a rot set in and the Indians found themselves on the back-foot.
Rashid Khan (1/120) claimed his maiden Test wicket when he had stand-in Indian skipper Ajinkya Rahane (10) leg before with the help of the DRS and Cheteshwar Pujara (35) became Mujeeb ur Rahaman’s first victim after he was brilliantly caught at short fine-leg by Mohammad Nabi.
Comeback-man Dinesh Karthik (four) was run out needlessly as a solid foundation laid by the openers was wasted by the middle-order.
Rashid conceded a ‘century’, getting a reality check on the enormous gulf between T20 and Test cricket during the first two sessions. However, being a quick learner, he came back well in the final session varying the pace of his deliveries and getting the ball to dip in troubling the middle-order with a final spell of 9-2-15-1.
Earlier, Dhawan became the first Indian batsman to score a century in the first session of a Test match joining the illustrious ranks of Sir Don Bradman, Victor Trumper, Majid Khan, and David Warner.
The hapless bowlers struggled during the first two sessions as they were not able to hit the correct ‘Test match length’, especially the spinners, who are used to bowling flat and quick.