MANCHESTER // Faced with Bangladesh's opening batsmen on 96 for no loss, many England supporters were fearing the worst by the time tea came in the second day of the second Test at Old Trafford yesterday. England had only reached 419 earlier in the day thanks to Ian Bell hitting 128 and Matt Prior reaching 93. There was no panic in the England dressing room though, and they eventually came out to dismiss the entire Bangladesh side in a dramatic final session. "Going into tea time things weren't great for us. We've come to expect bit from Bangladesh, they can really take the game away from you with their opening batsmen," said the spin bowler Graeme Swann. "We regrouped and had a discussion with the bowling coach David Saker and manager Andy Flower. We came up with a plan that worked perfectly because we took 10 wickets in the last session. "We talked about the length we would bowl and a few variations here and there, it worked perfectly." Swann was the main benefactor of the plan. After changing his bowling end, he went on to claim five wickets as Bangladesh were dismissed for 216. "Old Trafford is one of those grounds spinners look forward to bowling on. It was enjoyable to bowl on once I changed ends - I felt much more comfortable from the Stretford End," he said. "Sometimes you feel slightly more comfortable coming from one end. At Lord's for example I feel much more comfortable coming from the Nursery End for no apparent reason and here it was the Stretford End." Bangladesh looked well on course as Tamim Iqbal and Imrul Kayes made the most of initially lacklustre bowling from England. They treated the opening pair of Jimmy Anderson and Steven Finn unkindly. The bowlers had the last laugh though, with Finn getting the wicket of Kayes to break the partnership and Anderson removing Tamim to spark the Bangladesh collapse. Swann went on to capitalise with five wickets, while debutant Ajmal Shahzad saw off three batsmen. Tamim's batting was the highlight of the Bangladesh innings, but he was disappointed that he could not prolong the partnership with Kayes. They managed 126, 59 short of the 185 they had put on at Lord's in the first Test last week. That 185 was the highest opening partnership in Bangladesh history. "Imrul understands his job and I understand what my role is, we have had good partnerships and are scoring highly," he said. "He is a good player and he needs to learn from his mistake and I need to learn from my mistake. Maybe next innings we will get a bigger partnership." @Email:lthornhill@thenational.ae
