Murad, Taijul bag four apiece as Bangladesh complete 2-0 series sweep

Bangladesh won the second Test against Ireland by a comprehensive margin of 217 runs, and clean swept the visitors 2-0 in Dhaka. The win was set up by Mushfiqur Rahim's century in his 100th Test along with 'keeper-batter Litton Das reaching the three-figure mark. Five of the hosts' top-six scored 50s in the second innings while Taijul Islam finished with eight wickets in the game (8 for 180).

Bangladesh came into Day 5 needing four wickets to complete the series win and the expectation was that their spinners would run through the Irish tail. But Ireland were determined to not go down without a fight and batted 68.3 overs on the day. Taijul Islam and Mehidy Hasan Miraz bowled in tandem for Bangladesh in the first hour of play with the cracks on the pitch having opened up. The spinners induced the edge of bat onto pad a few times but the ball lobbed away from the short-leg fielder. After drinks, Andy McBrine became Taijul's 250th Test wicket having played across the line to a full delivery on the stumps and rapped on the pads.

New batter Jordan Neill came out and crunched a couple of boundaries off Taijul while Mehidy continued to keep things quiet from the other end. Neill continued to find returns against Taijul with back-to-back boundaries in his following over before tonking Hasan Murad for a six. Litton let the following delivery slip through his gloves to give Neill a reprieve. All this while, Curtis Campher held one end up with a dogged defensive technique. He finally broke free with a six down the ground for a maximum which brought up his 50.

Two overs after taking the second new ball, Mehidy Hasan broke the frustrating partnership between Neill and Campher of 48 runs. The spinner got one to drift past Neill's outside edge which crashed into off-stump. Campher was then accompanied by Gavin Hoey who played couple of cracking shots to the boundary on the stroke of Lunch.

The boundaries might not have come post Lunch but the two Irishmen made Bangladesh graft for the first hour after the break. They gritted it out and kept rotating the strike to bring up the 50-partnership. The 191-ball resistance finally came to an end when Hoey was trapped in front by Murad. Matthew Humphreys was dismissed off the very next delivery by Murad as the innings came to a quick end, but after 113.3 overs of Irish resistance.

Brief Scores: Bangladesh 476 (Litton Das 128, Mushfiqur Rahim 106; Andy McBrine 6-109, Gavin Hoey 2-115) & 297/4 dec (Mominul Haque 87, Shadman Islam 78; Gavin Hoey 2-84, Jordan Neill 1-48) beat Ireland 265 (Lorcan Tucker 75, Jordan Neill 49; Taijul Islam 4-76, Khaled Ahmed 2-39) & 291 (Curtis Campher 71*, Harry Tector 50; Hasan Murad 4-44, Taijul Islam 4-104) by 217 runs..