Pakistan took charge of the Chittagong Test against Bangladesh by dominating the second day’s play both with bat and ball.

The visitors first hurt Bangladesh’s ambition of putting up a substantial first innings total as Hasan Ali claimed a five-wicket haul to dismiss the hosts for 330. Then openers Abid Ali and Abdullah Shafique thwarted the Bangladeshi bowling attack for the rest of the day to take their team to 145 without loss at stumps on Saturday.

Pakistan are still 185 runs behind the home team’s total, but with the start they have got, it is unlikely that they will face any big difficulty in overhauling that.

At the close of play, Abid was batting on 93, while Shafique, who wasn’t as confident in his strokeplay as his opening partner, was on 52.

“We are in good position now and will try to take it session by session,” Abid said after the day’s play. “Our first target is to go past Bangladesh’s 330 and then we will try to take a big lead to give our bowlers an advantage.”

Bangladesh will regret not adding more runs to their first innings total after resuming the day on 253/4. Speedster Hasan, who had faced the fans’ ire a few days back for his costly drop in Pakistan’s T20 World Cup semi-final loss to Australia, was the hero finishing with 5/51. Of the six Bangladesh wickets that fell on Day II, Hasan alone took four.

This was Hasan’s sixth five-for in Test cricket.

He was well supported by fellow pacers Shaheen Shah Afridi (2/70) and Faheen Ashraf (2/54).

For the hosts, Liton Das was the top scorer with 114, while former captain Mushfiqur Rahim made 91.