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Modi’s BJP conquers Bengal, one of India’s toughest political frontiers

Published

6 days ago

2026/05/4

Priyan

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a road show in support of BJP candidates in Bengal [BBC]

For years, India’s West Bengal state was the great exception to Narendra Modi’s political advance.

His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had swept through India’s Hindi-speaking heartland, expanded into the west and north-east, and overwhelmed once-formidable regional rivals. Yet Bengal – argumentative and steeped in a self-image of cultural exceptionalism – remained stubbornly resistant.

That made this state election unusually consequential. With more than 100 million people, West Bengal’s electorate is larger than Germany’s, turning its election into something closer to a nation choosing a government than a routine Indian state poll.

Monday’s BJP victory there would rank among the most significant breakthroughs of Modi’s 12-year reign. It is not merely the defeat of a three-term incumbent, but the completion of the party’s long march into eastern India.

“Winning Bengal is a big victory for the BJP – a land of promise that has long eluded its grasp,” says author and journalist Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.

Monday produced an extrodinary political churn across India’s south as well.

Hindustan Times via Getty Images Chief Minister and AITC candidate for Bhabanipur Assembly Constituency Mamata Banerjee visits and interacts with people on 2nd phase and final phase of West Bengal Legislative Assembly Election at Chakraberia area in Bhabanipur on April 29, 2026 in Kolkata, India. — *A defeat in Bengal would end Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year rule in the state [BBC]*

In Tamil Nadu, MK Stalin’s DMK government was swept aside by actor-turned-politician Vijay and his fledgling TVK party, marking the dramatic return of film-star politics to the state.

In Kerala, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) defeated the Left Democratic Front (LDF) after two consecutive terms, ending the last remaining Communist-led state government in India. Only in Assam did the BJP buck the broader anti-incumbent tide and retain power, while the party and its allies also held on to the federal territory of Puducherry.

Yet nowhere were the results more politically significant than in Bengal.

The state has seen only one change of government in nearly half a century: the Communist Left Front ruled for 34 years before the Trinamool Congress (TMC), led by the firebrand populist Mamata Banerjee, dominated the next 15 years until now. Political scientists have long described Bengal as a system that favours “hegemonic” parties.

Analysts see the outcome not as a sudden upheaval but as the culmination of a decade-long political project. Unlike the BJP’s rapid rise in Tripura or its earlier breakthrough in Assam, Bengal was never a lightning conquest.

“The BJP has been a major force in Bengal for three successive elections, consistently polling around 39% of the popular vote,” says Rahul Verma, who is a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research.

Once it established itself near the 39-40% mark, he argues, “the party really needed only another 5-6% to cross the line”. Voting trends show the BJP mopping up more than 44% of the vote this time.

*Exit polls had predicted a tight contest between the BJP and Trinamool Congress[BBC]*

What makes the result particularly striking is that the BJP achieved this despite still lacking the kind of deep organisational machinery that regional parties historically required to win Bengal.

The Trinamool Congress retained a denser grassroots network and the charismatic dominance of Banerjee. Yet the BJP repeatedly sustained a commanding vote share despite allegations of rival political intimidation and the challenge of taking on one of India’s most entrenched regional parties.

“That suggests,” Verma says, “the party’s support now extends beyond the limits of its relatively thin organisational structure.”

So what shifted the election so sharply towards the BJP?

For years, Banerjee’s party forged a formidable social coalition: women, Muslims and large sections of the Hindu vote across both rural and urban Bengal.

Women, in particular, formed the backbone of the party’s welfare-driven politics. The Lokniti-CSDS post-poll survey in 2021 found the TMC’s support among women touching 50% – four percentage points higher than among men – reflecting the impact of years of female-focused welfare schemes and Banerjee’s efforts to expand women’s political representation.

This time, however, the BJP sought to directly challenge that advantage by promising larger cash transfers and expanded welfare benefits of its own.

*Home Minister Amit Shah spearheaded the BJP’s campaign in West Bengal [BBC]*

“Banerjee’s long electoral success rested on a delicate equilibrium between welfare and organisation. But the very organisation that sustained her for 15 years also became her Achilles’ heel,” says political scientist Bhanu Joshi.

“That balance broke down as the party machinery weakened and welfare politics appeared to reach its limits – voters began to see benefits as routine rather than transformative.

“The BJP’s opening was to translate this anti-TMC fatigue into a sharper language of Hindu consolidation. So this is not simply a story of welfare failing; it is a story of welfare and organisation no longer being strong enough to contain polarisation,” says Joshi.

The election also once again highlighted the centrality of Muslim voters to Bengal’s political arithmetic, even if the precise contours of voting patterns remain unclear.

Muslims make up roughly 27% of the population, and nearly a third of the state’s seats have substantial Muslim populations.

In 2021, the TMC swept 84 of 88 Muslim-dominated seats, reflecting a broad consolidation behind Banerjee. While early indications suggest the party retained significant Muslim support this time too, the BJP has increasingly sought to offset that advantage through wider Hindu consolidation and competing welfare promises.

*The BJP has made significant inroads into Kolkata and other urban regions [BBC]*

“The BJP combined an aggressive welfare pitch with sharper polarisation. It promised to double cash benefits, while visible communalisation consolidated sections of the Bengali Hindu vote behind the party,” says Maidul Islam, a political scientist at Kolkata’s Centre for Studies in Social Sciences.

BJP leaders, however, framed the result less as ideological consolidation than as a rejection of the Trinamool Congress itself.

The TMC created a “crisis of leadership for itself,” BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan told one news network. He accused the party of “arrogance” and claimed that “voters, particularly women angered by atrocities and law-and-order failures, had decisively rejected the Trinamool Congress”.

The other elephant in the room was the fiercely contested revision of Bengal’s electoral rolls.

The Election Commission said the exercise, known as the special intensive revision, was intended to clean up voter lists by removing duplicate or ineligible names.

But with nearly three million voters still awaiting tribunal decisions before polling, Banerjee along with activists and civil society groups alleged that Bengal had effectively gone into the election after a “mass disenfranchisement exercise”. This, they said, had disproportionately affecting poor and minority voters, especially Muslims and migrant communities in border districts.

Analysts say the exercise is now likely to come under even sharper scrutiny in closely fought seats where victory margins are much narrower than the number of deleted voters. “The revision of polls will come into play [once the results are in],” politician and activist Yogendra Yadav told NDTV news network.

But the electoral-roll controversy alone cannot explain the scale of the BJP’s surge, many believe.

What also worked in the party’s favour was a tightly focused campaign centred on alleged corruption and governance failures within the Trinamool Congress, hammering scandals such as a trachers’ recruitment scam rather than relying primarily on personal attacks against Banerjee.

*BJP supporters celebrating the results of Bengal elections on Monday [BBC]*

With the BJP firmly on course for victory, the implications will extend far beyond Bengal.

Unlike in neighbouring Bihar, where the party governs through alliances, or even Odisha, where its 2024 breakthrough came against a weakened regional incumbent, a victory in Bengal would represent a standalone conquest of one of India’s most politically formidable states.

“It would strengthen Modi enormously,” says Mukhopadhyay.

“More than Odisha, this would be seen as a personal political victory not only for Narendra Modi, but also for Home Minister Amit Shah, who effectively ran the campaign.”

Within the BJP, Shah would almost certainly emerge as the informal ‘man of the match’ – echoing the way Modi elevated him after the party’s landmark victory in Uttar Pradesh in 2014.

A Bengal breakthrough could also reshape the BJP’s succession politics, says Mukhopadhyay.

It would reinforce Shah’s standing as Modi’s most likely heir, potentially placing him ahead of rivals such as Yogi Adityanath, Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh in the party’s next-generation power hierarchy.

That would make Bengal’s verdict consequential far beyond the state itself.

For decades, Bengal prided itself on resisting the political currents reshaping the rest of India.

Now that the BJP has finally breached one of India’s most enduring regional strongholds, it may mark not just the end of an era in Bengal, but the beginning of a new phase in the Modi project itself.

***[BBC]***

Getty Images BJP flags in Kolkata Street — *A defeat in Bengal would end Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year rule in the state [BBC]*

In Tamil Nadu, MK Stalin’s DMK government was swept aside by actor-turned-politician Vijay and his fledgling TVK party, marking the dramatic return of film-star politics to the state.

In Kerala, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) defeated the Left Democratic Front (LDF) after two consecutive terms, ending the last remaining Communist-led state government in India. Only in Assam did the BJP buck the broader anti-incumbent tide and retain power, while the party and its allies also held on to the federal territory of Puducherry.

Yet nowhere were the results more politically significant than in Bengal.

The state has seen only one change of government in nearly half a century: the Communist Left Front ruled for 34 years before the Trinamool Congress (TMC), led by the firebrand populist Mamata Banerjee, dominated the next 15 years until now. Political scientists have long described Bengal as a system that favours “hegemonic” parties.

Analysts see the outcome not as a sudden upheaval but as the culmination of a decade-long political project. Unlike the BJP’s rapid rise in Tripura or its earlier breakthrough in Assam, Bengal was never a lightning conquest.

“The BJP has been a major force in Bengal for three successive elections, consistently polling around 39% of the popular vote,” says Rahul Verma, who is a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research.

Once it established itself near the 39-40% mark, he argues, “the party really needed only another 5-6% to cross the line”. Voting trends show the BJP mopping up more than 44% of the vote this time.

*Exit polls had predicted a tight contest between the BJP and Trinamool Congress[BBC]*

What makes the result particularly striking is that the BJP achieved this despite still lacking the kind of deep organisational machinery that regional parties historically required to win Bengal.

The Trinamool Congress retained a denser grassroots network and the charismatic dominance of Banerjee. Yet the BJP repeatedly sustained a commanding vote share despite allegations of rival political intimidation and the challenge of taking on one of India’s most entrenched regional parties.

“That suggests,” Verma says, “the party’s support now extends beyond the limits of its relatively thin organisational structure.”

So what shifted the election so sharply towards the BJP?

For years, Banerjee’s party forged a formidable social coalition: women, Muslims and large sections of the Hindu vote across both rural and urban Bengal.

Women, in particular, formed the backbone of the party’s welfare-driven politics. The Lokniti-CSDS post-poll survey in 2021 found the TMC’s support among women touching 50% – four percentage points higher than among men – reflecting the impact of years of female-focused welfare schemes and Banerjee’s efforts to expand women’s political representation.

This time, however, the BJP sought to directly challenge that advantage by promising larger cash transfers and expanded welfare benefits of its own.

*Home Minister Amit Shah spearheaded the BJP’s campaign in West Bengal [BBC]*

“Banerjee’s long electoral success rested on a delicate equilibrium between welfare and organisation. But the very organisation that sustained her for 15 years also became her Achilles’ heel,” says political scientist Bhanu Joshi.

“That balance broke down as the party machinery weakened and welfare politics appeared to reach its limits – voters began to see benefits as routine rather than transformative.

“The BJP’s opening was to translate this anti-TMC fatigue into a sharper language of Hindu consolidation. So this is not simply a story of welfare failing; it is a story of welfare and organisation no longer being strong enough to contain polarisation,” says Joshi.

The election also once again highlighted the centrality of Muslim voters to Bengal’s political arithmetic, even if the precise contours of voting patterns remain unclear.

Muslims make up roughly 27% of the population, and nearly a third of the state’s seats have substantial Muslim populations.

In 2021, the TMC swept 84 of 88 Muslim-dominated seats, reflecting a broad consolidation behind Banerjee. While early indications suggest the party retained significant Muslim support this time too, the BJP has increasingly sought to offset that advantage through wider Hindu consolidation and competing welfare promises.

*The BJP has made significant inroads into Kolkata and other urban regions [BBC]*

“The BJP combined an aggressive welfare pitch with sharper polarisation. It promised to double cash benefits, while visible communalisation consolidated sections of the Bengali Hindu vote behind the party,” says Maidul Islam, a political scientist at Kolkata’s Centre for Studies in Social Sciences.

BJP leaders, however, framed the result less as ideological consolidation than as a rejection of the Trinamool Congress itself.

The TMC created a “crisis of leadership for itself,” BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan told one news network. He accused the party of “arrogance” and claimed that “voters, particularly women angered by atrocities and law-and-order failures, had decisively rejected the Trinamool Congress”.

The other elephant in the room was the fiercely contested revision of Bengal’s electoral rolls.

The Election Commission said the exercise, known as the special intensive revision, was intended to clean up voter lists by removing duplicate or ineligible names.

But with nearly three million voters still awaiting tribunal decisions before polling, Banerjee along with activists and civil society groups alleged that Bengal had effectively gone into the election after a “mass disenfranchisement exercise”. This, they said, had disproportionately affecting poor and minority voters, especially Muslims and migrant communities in border districts.

Analysts say the exercise is now likely to come under even sharper scrutiny in closely fought seats where victory margins are much narrower than the number of deleted voters. “The revision of polls will come into play [once the results are in],” politician and activist Yogendra Yadav told NDTV news network.

But the electoral-roll controversy alone cannot explain the scale of the BJP’s surge, many believe.

What also worked in the party’s favour was a tightly focused campaign centred on alleged corruption and governance failures within the Trinamool Congress, hammering scandals such as a trachers’ recruitment scam rather than relying primarily on personal attacks against Banerjee.

*BJP supporters celebrating the results of Bengal elections on Monday [BBC]*

With the BJP firmly on course for victory, the implications will extend far beyond Bengal.

Unlike in neighbouring Bihar, where the party governs through alliances, or even Odisha, where its 2024 breakthrough came against a weakened regional incumbent, a victory in Bengal would represent a standalone conquest of one of India’s most politically formidable states.

“It would strengthen Modi enormously,” says Mukhopadhyay.

“More than Odisha, this would be seen as a personal political victory not only for Narendra Modi, but also for Home Minister Amit Shah, who effectively ran the campaign.”

Within the BJP, Shah would almost certainly emerge as the informal ‘man of the match’ – echoing the way Modi elevated him after the party’s landmark victory in Uttar Pradesh in 2014.

A Bengal breakthrough could also reshape the BJP’s succession politics, says Mukhopadhyay.

It would reinforce Shah’s standing as Modi’s most likely heir, potentially placing him ahead of rivals such as Yogi Adityanath, Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh in the party’s next-generation power hierarchy.

That would make Bengal’s verdict consequential far beyond the state itself.

For decades, Bengal prided itself on resisting the political currents reshaping the rest of India.

Now that the BJP has finally breached one of India’s most enduring regional strongholds, it may mark not just the end of an era in Bengal, but the beginning of a new phase in the Modi project itself.

***[BBC]***

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Gill, Sai Sudharsan, Rashid power Gujarat Titans to second spot with fourth straight win

Published

4 hours ago

2026/05/10

Priyan

Shubman Gill and Jason Holder celebrate Jofra Archer's wicket [Cricinfo]

Twenty-eight overs into the contest in Jaipur, Rajasthan Royals (RR) were keeping pace with Gujarat Titans (GT). They were 86 for 3 in seven overs, chasing 230. Dhruv Jurel looked like he had excised his slow-batting demons. He was on 24 off 9 and ready to go bigger. Then, Rashid Khan spun one past Jurel’s slog to peg back his stumps. It was the first of his four wickets. On a night of spin chokeholds by both RR and GT, Rashid’s spell of 4 for 36 was the point of difference between both sides.

At the end of it all, GT zoomed up to second spot in the points table with 14 points. It was their fourth consecutive win, as they continued their late surge in this IPL.

Earlier in the evening, half-centuries from Shubman Gill and B Sai Sudarshan – and their 118-run opening partnership – headlined GT’s biggest IPL score outside Ahmedabad. They had been greeted by an all-pink Jaipur. RR’s jerseys were the same colour, in honour of their women’s empowerment movement. By the end of the powerplay, Gill and Sudharsan couldn’t have felt more at home themselves. They had raced away to 82 for 0, and alongside Rashid’s spell, they headlined a 77-run win.

Jofra Archer took 11 deliveries to get through the first over of the match. It featured nine extras and was the longest opening over in the history of the tournament. By the end of it, Gill and Sai Sudharsan – without taking any big risks – had raced away to 18 for no loss. This was the theme of the powerplay: the opening pair kept getting balls on their pads or bouncers shooting way over their heads. They played most of their shots in the ‘V’ down the ground. By the end of the first six, they were just 18 runs away from their ninth 100-plus partnership, the second-best tally in the IPL, just behind Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers.

Despite their big start, Gill and Sai Sudharsan slowed down in characteristic fashion. Both of them reached their fifties off 30 balls. Yash Raj Punja (1 for 37) and Ravindra Jadeja (1 for 34) did not find much turn off the surface, but bowling in tandem through the middle overs, they cut off the risk-free boundary options for the opening pair.

A leg injury while running between wickets affected Gill’s running as well. Punja took out Sai Sudharsan for 55 off 36, holing out to long-on, and Jadeja speared in a delivery to Jos Buttler at 107kph to rush him on a drive straight to long-off.

After GT’s whirlwind start, 220 was a base expectation from their innings. By the end of the 19th over, they were on track to finish under it, stuck on 208 for 4. Brijesh Sharma had plucked out Jason Holder’s wicket and given away just four runs in the 19th, varying his pace and bowling into the blockhole. However, his gold-dust over was reduced to a footnote when Tushar Deshpande missed his lines in the last over. Rahul Tewatia maneuvered around the crease to leather back-to-back sixes, before Washington Sundar hit one of his own to drag GT to 229 for 4.

It is the stuff of routine now. The bowler chugs in, bowls a perfectly okay delivery, and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi sends him into the stands first-ball. Saturday night was no different, as Sooryavanshi clobbered Mohammed Siraj across the line over the long-on boundary. Next ball, a Siraj yorker rifled towards the stumps, and Sooryavanshi inside-edged onto his foot and fell to the ground.

Sooryavanshi looked set for another big start, despite limping between wickets, blasting Siraj for three fours in four deliveries. On the fifth delivery, he was rushed into a hook off a fiery bouncer that carried to square leg. In the blink of an eye, Sooryavanshi went from zero to 16-ball 36, then from the middle to the dugout.

Siraj (1 for 55) and Kagiso Rabada (2 for 33) became the first pair of IPL bowlers to bowl through the powerplay four matches in a row. Jurel ventured down the track to plunder a 22-run over against Siraj before the powerplay ended. Rashid would pluck him out soon anyway.

With Sooryavanshi and Jaiswal gone, the onus was on Jurel and Ravindra Jadeja – who clobbered six and four off his first two deliveries – to play against type and shift into fifth gear. But Rashid got the ball to jag and turn off a pitch like no other spinner on the night. He also bowled more legbreaks than googlies – a rarity for him – to keep the batters guessing.

Once Jurel perished, Donovan Ferreira saw the ball turn the other way, past an innocuous front-foot defence. Harsh Dubey soon went for another missed slog, Rashid’s third consecutive dismissal to rattle the stumps. Rashid wore a wry smile when Jadeja swiped him over backward square leg for six in the 14th over. Next ball, Jadeja was trapped lbw in front of the stumps as the ball spun into his pads.

Holder soon mopped up the tail, taking the final three wickets in five deliveries and RR had lost their third game in four matches.

Brief scores:
Gujarat Titans 229 for 4 in 20 overs (Sai Sudharsan 55, Shubman Gill 84, Joss Buttler 13, Washington Sundar 37*, Rahul Tewatia 14*; Brijesh Sharma 2-47, Yash Raj Punja 1-37, Ravindra Jadeja 1-34) beat Rajasthan Royals 152/10 in 16.3 overs (Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 36, Dhruv Jurel 24, Ravindra Jadeja, 38, Shubham Dubey 15, Dasun Shanaka 16; Mohammed Siraj 1-15, KagisoRabada 2-33, Rashid Khan 4-33, Jason Holder 3-12) by 77 runs

[Cricinfo]

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Showers above 100 mm are likely at some places in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central, Southern, Uva, North-western and Northern provinces and in Anuradhapura district.

Published

4 hours ago

2026/05/10

Priyan

WEATHER FORECAST FOR 10 MAY 2026
Issued at 05.30 a.m. on 10 May 2026 by the Department of Meteorology

The low-level atmospheric disturbance in the vicinity of Sri Lanka is likely to develop into a low-pressure area around 11th of May. Therefore, the prevailing showery conditions over the island are expected to continue during the next few days.

Showers or thundershowers will occur at most places over the island, and cloudy skies are expected over the island. Heavy showers above 100 mm are likely at some places in the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central, Southern, Uva, North-western and Northern provinces and in Anuradhapura district.

The general public is kindly requested to take adequate precautions to minimize damage caused by temporary localized strong winds and lightning during thundershowers.

Latest News

Debutant Awais leads Pakistan’s strong reply after Abbas five-for

Published

13 hours ago

2026/05/9

Priyan

Mohammad Abbas walks back after bagging a five-for [BCB]

Bangladesh commanded proceedings on the first day, but Pakistan changed that around dramatically on the second, led by the youngest member of the team. Azan Awais, making his debut, steered Pakistan into a position of relative comfort in a century partnership alongside Imam-ul-Haq and then another solid stand with fellow debutant Abdullah Fazal.

By the end of the day, Awais had taken his side to 179 for the loss of just Imam’s wicket. Awais had contributed an unbeaten 85, nearing a debut hundred on the third morning. As a result, Pakistan were only another 234 runs behind with nine wickets standing after Bangladesh posted 413.

The confidence and poise he demonstrated across the last session was not immediately obvious when thrown in for an awkward ten overs before tea. The first ball Nahid Rana bowled to him was a wicked short delivery that reared up and hit him square on the badge of the helmet. With Awais visibly dazed, the physio was called and a concussion test began, one he looked in real danger of failing. Batting on, Awais briefly called for the physio again shortly after, but was allowed to stay on.

And once he did, there was no looking back. While Imam remained fidgety, Awais began to demonstrate why he has been the most prolific domestic run-scorer in Pakistan across the last two seasons. A delicious cover drive off Nahid showed his refusal to back down under the stern test. Awais’ ability to force Bangladesh to spread the field kept the hosts unsettled as he found boundaries through the covers, either side of the wicket, and straight down the ground.

Imam’s dismissal, an arm ball from Mehidy Hasan Miraz, appeared to have little impact on Awais’ own confidence. In the final hour during Nitish’s last burst, he pitched the first two balls short, with Awais dispatching them for boundaries either side. When Nahid went full at 147.1kph off the following delivery, Awais merely flicked him to fine leg to make it three in a row. It was the last time Nahid would bowl on the day.

It helped, perhaps, that Fazal showed he was comfortable at the crease during a crucial phase in the game. It was an attritional innings, but crucially, one that has not come to an end. It may easily have ended in the final ten minutes, though, when Bangladesh put down a chance off Taskin at third slip – the second such reprieve for a Pakistan batter after a nick from Imam was grassed earlier.

But the position these young batters found themselves in would not have been possible without an old hand. Mohammad Abbas had said Pakistan had been slightly unlucky on the first day, and then played an instrumental part turning that luck around on the second morning. Four wickets to add to Friday’s one gave the fast bowler a five-wicket haul that undid some of the damage Bangladesh inflicted on Pakistan on day one, thus bowling them out for 413.

It was still the highest first-innings score Bangladesh have ever managed against Pakistan, though it fell short of what they may have hoped when they looked solid at 338 for 4, before losing 5 for 46.

Earlier, Bangladesh had threatened to run away after Litton Das struck three boundaries off Shaheen Shah Afridi’s first three balls. But Pakistan managed to rein the scoring rate back in. It set the stage for Abbas to try and get something out of a pitch his compatriots appeared to have written off for dead.

Always searching for unconventional ways to gain an edge, he surprised Litton Das with a bouncer that, despite his modest pace, grew big on the batter as he tried to mow it over mid-on. Litton found Amad Butt, the substitute fielder, stationed there, and he took a splendid catch for Pakistan’s first success in the morning.

Shortly after, Abbas added a second wicket in the morning as Mehidy Hasan Miraz tried to transfer pressure back onto him. A six off the previous delivery emboldened the batter to scythe him through point, but Mehidy only found Imam’s safe hands.

It appeared Bangladesh had decided to take Pakistan on from one end while Mushfiqur Rahim shepherded them from the other. Taijul Islam went after Hasan Ali in a little cameo that sped up the scoring rate, but, again, found himself succumbing to the unlikely Abbas bumper that he failed to get on top of.

The other quicks finally jumped in to help. Shaheen Shah Afridi broke the innings open by ending Mushfiqur’s stubborn resistance on 71 with a lovely nipping ball post-lunch. But Abbas was not denied his fifth – it was yet another bouncer that Ebadot Hossain could not handle and nicked off to. Bangladesh found a way to get over the 400 mark with a breezy cameo from Taskin Ahmed, who scored 28 off 19 balls, and added 29 with last batter Nahid.

Awais, along with Imam, then came out to bat an hour before tea. He then led the way in ensuring Pakistan’s goals in this Test are far loftier than mere survival.

Brief scores:
Pakistan 179 for 1 in 46 overs (Azan Awais 85*, Imam-ul-Haq 45, Abdullah Fazal 37*; Mehidy Hasan Miraz 1-37) trail Bangladesh 413 in 117.1 overs (Najmul Hosein Shanto 101, Mominul Haq 91, Mushfiqur Rahim 71; Mohammed Abbas 5-92, Shaheen ShahnAfridi 3-113) by 234 runs