Bangladesh vs India: Three key lessons from India’s win in the first Test Match

While many will doubtless feel the success could have come a lot earlier, the positive to be taken from this is that India have won the Test and thus climbed to second in the World Test Championship (WTC) standings.

A two-Test series against Bangladesh would typically have no relevance, but in the WTC era, every Test carries points for a win, and so it was necessary for India that they got the win here. 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">WHAT. A. WIN! 👏👏<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TeamIndia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TeamIndia</a> put on an impressive show to win the first <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BANvIND?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BANvIND</a> Test by 188 runs 🙌🙌<br><br>Scorecard ▶️ <a href="https://t.co/CVZ44N7IRe">https://t.co/CVZ44N7IRe</a> <a href="https://t.co/Xw9jFgtsnm">pic.twitter.com/Xw9jFgtsnm</a></p>&mdash; BCCI (@BCCI) <a href="https://twitter.com/BCCI/status/1604333998527770624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

That being said, while they did wrap up the win in the end, there are still a few things team management can learn going into the final Test. 

Here are the key takeaways from the first Test between India and Bangladesh: 

Bringing back Rohit Sharma will open a can of worms – Rohit Sharma had been ruled out of the opening Test due to his thumb injury in the second ODI against Bangladesh. Still, all signs point to the skipper being fit for the second Test at Dhaka. 

However, a lot of fans are going to be annoyed at how it is that the team management will bring Rohit back into the squad. That is because the expectation is that Shubman Gill will make way for Rohit. 

That’s all well and good when looking at seniority – Rohit and KL Rahul are captain and vice-captain, respectively – but Gill is coming off a maiden Test ton, whereas Rahul had a largely forgettable first Test as a batsman. Yet, the way things work in this team, don’t be surprised when Gill is dropped and fans get annoyed because of it. 

Kuldeep Yadav needs to play a lot more Test cricket – Incredibly, he has only played 8 Tests so far in his career. Granted, getting into the Test team is more challenging, especially overseas, where India prefers playing just one spinner. 

But this is the same Kuldeep who was once declared India’s first-choice overseas spinner by former coach Ravi Shastri – yet has found himself on the sidelines more often than not. And that’s a mistake, as he proved in the first Test. 

Eight wickets against Bangladesh might not seem like a lot. Still, you can only play the opposition in front of you, and Kuldeep’s new-found confidence deserves the reward of a long rope in Test match cricket, even at the expense of Ravichandran Ashwin. 

KL Rahul’s defensive tactics opposite to ‘aggressive’ talk – Before the Test match began, KL Rahul said the team would be playing ‘aggressive’ cricket with him in charge. But when the time came to be aggressive and put Bangladesh in to follow on, he chose instead for India to bat again. 

Now there’s plenty of justification for his decision – not least that India won the Test match anyway. But the game could have ended so much quicker if the follow-on had been enforced, especially since Bangladesh’s batting always tends to self-destruct. 

Perhaps more importantly, it gives critics of Rahul as a future captain even more ammunition. Here’s a player who openly talked about being aggressive but did the exact opposite when push came to shove.