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Trent Copeland was a wicketkeeper-batsman until five years ago as he juggled the roles in St George’s third grade side. Last season he was the bowling find of the domestic summer after storming to 35 wickets in his first five Sheffield Shield games for New South Wales.As Copeland, 24, prepared for his second campaign as a first-class paceman, his initial aim was to get a game. During the winter that seemed like a particularly tough assignment, but the Blues start the season with Nathan Bracken and Josh Hazlewood injured, Brett Lee focussing on limited-overs games, and Doug Bollinger, Mitchell Starc and Shane Watson in India with the Test outfit. That leaves Copeland with an early chance to impress in Monday’s Sheffield Shield fixture against South Australia.”It was beyond my wildest expectations,” he told ESPNcricinfo of his debut summer. “I never expected to play for New South Wales last year, let alone do so well. I was over the moon. Looking forward, if I can do half as well as that for the rest of my career I’ll be pretty happy.”The late start to bowling came because Copeland was sick of breaking fingers while keeping and didn’t want the injuries to hurt his batting. He started grabbing the ball in the nets, helped the team to a third-grade trophy and the following season was a fixture in the firsts. Now his worries are hamstring strains and stress fractures.”If you look back now it’s a great story, but to me it’s been a natural progression,” he said. “I started to bowl because I didn’t want to get a duck and do nothing for the rest of the game. Since then the bowling has been such an enjoyable thing because you have so much control over what happens.”Copeland runs his own coaching business so was always talking to his charges about the best method to deliver the various options and on the way taught himself. “I haven’t had any bowling coaching until I came into the state squad,” he said. “There are guys that I’ve played with at St George who have helped me, but never really specific one-on-one coaching.”In an era where technique rules, Copeland is a natural player from another age. He likes to swing the ball but at 195cm can also pull back his length and hit the pitch hard. During his half-season last year he showed his flexibility by collecting five-fors in Adelaide and Hobart after his stunning 8 for 92 on debut against Queensland at the SCG. That was his first eight-wicket return since his third-grade days.Copeland has just completed his first pre-season with the Blues, replacing his usual method of keeping fit in winter by playing hockey. Bowling has been his focus but he is desperate to improve his batting. He said he scored 80s and 90s in first grade during his time as an opener, but only managed a top of 9 for his state.”My record from last year doesn’t say I can bat,” he said. “But in myself I know I can.” A lack of runs won’t worry his team-mates, as long as he keeps taking wickets.

ScorecardCraig Kieswetter formed the centrepiece to Somerset’s innings•Getty Images

Craig Kieswetter hit his highest County Championship score of the season as Somerset moved into a strong position against Lancashire at Taunton. The England one-day international made 84 off 80 balls, with nine fours and a six, to help his side to 350 for 8 – a lead of 91 runs, by the time heavy rain ended play an hour early.Gary Keedy took five for 81 to reduce the home side to 276 for eight before an unbroken stand of 74 between Ben Phillips (29 not out) and Murali Kartik (37 not out) took Somerset to a fourth batting point.The hosts began the day on 54 for 1 and lost Arul Suppiah without adding to his overnight score of 13 as he edged a catch to wicketkeeper Gareth Cross off Tom Smith. It was 71 for 3 when night-watchman Alfonso Thomas was bowled playing across a delivery from Sajid Mahmood and batting was looking far from easy.Nick Compton and James Hildreth had to play watchfully to take the total to 128 and seemed to have done the hard work when Hildreth fell lbw for 26 trying to sweep Keedy. It was 133 for 4 at lunch with Compton unbeaten on 41. He had added eight to his score in the afternoon session when looking unlucky to be judged lbw playing well forward to Luke Procter.Kieswetter and Peter Trego (51) then ensured Somerset of first innings lead with some typically positive batting in a sixth-wicket stand of 111 in 21 overs. Trego, fresh from his first one-day century at the weekend, moved to fifty with a swept boundary off Simon Kerrigan, having faced 66 balls and hit seven fours.Then a momentary lapse in concentration saw him fall lbw to Keedy pushing forward and Somerset were only 12 runs ahead when Jos Buttler went leg-before first ball on his 20th birthday. Kieswetter had produced some superb strokes, including a six over wide long-off off Keedy, and some meaty leg-side blows.But in the latter part of his innings he began to play more one-day shots and that cost him his wicket as he was caught behind opening the face to the left-arm spinner. Keedy appeared to have ripped the heart out of the Somerset batting, but Lancashire took the new ball when Kartik joined Phillips and both played above their lowly positions in the batting order.Neither gave a chance as they gradually built on the slender advantage. Kartik hit a six over long-off and Phillips a straight six in the same Kerrigan over as their important partnership blossomed.

ScorecardNeil McKenzie continued his fine form as Hampshire secured victory•Getty Images

Neil McKenzie used all his experience gleaned over a long career in international cricket with South Africa to guide Hampshire to a two-wicket win over Leicestershire in their Clydesdale Bank 40 at the Rose Bowl. As wickets tumbled around him, McKenzie held firm with an unbeaten 51 to help his side get home with 13 balls to spare in a rain-affected match.Leicestershire, choosing to bat first, made 176 for 8 from their allotment of 35 overs, rain having knocked five from their total available. With McKenzie in control, Hampshire reached their target in 32.5 overs, keeping alive their hopes of qualifying for the latter stages of the CB40 competition.Leicestershire struggled to get going with Hampshire captain Dominic Cork taking two wickets before rain came and on the resumption Jacques du Toit and Matt Boyce contrived the best partnership of the innings, 71, for the fourth wicket. Du Toit was caught at mid-wicket for a valiant 45 and Boyce made 37 before he became a victim for Benny Howell, a 21-year-old allrounder making his Hampshire debut.Hampshire’s young side contained eight players who had come through their academy system and one of those, left arm pace bowler Chris Wood, ripped through the middle order, dismissing Wayne White, Tom New and Jigar Naik in rapid succession to finish with figures of three for 39.Leicestershire’s total never looked likely to be enough although Nathan Buck got rid of Jimmy Adams and Howell to leave Hampshire 45 for 3 in the 12th over. But then came two substantial partnerships involving the durable McKenzie, 52 for the fourth wicket with Michael Carberry and 55 for the fifth with Liam Dawson.Nadeem Malik kept alive Leicestershire’s outside hopes of snatching an unlikely win when he had Dawson caught at square leg for 30 and then dismissed Wood next ball to leave Hampshire 153 for 6 at the end of the 29th over.Malik knocked back the off stump of Michael Bates when the scores were level but McKenzie kept calm to see Hampshire complete their fifth win. McKenzie’s unbeaten innings came off 62 balls and including five fours while the persevering Malik took 4 for 40, the best bowling of the match but it was not enough to earn his team victory.Buck also caused Hampshire plenty of problems with a sharp opening spell and concluded with 2 for 16 from seven overs but in the end Leicestershire did not have enough runs to play with.

Scotland prevailed in a nerve-wracking contest against hosts Netherlands, winning off the penultimate ball with one wicket in hand in Amstelveen. Their chase of 235 had been dealt a serious blow when the first six wickets fell for 121, but the lower order set about pulling things back.The recovery was led by Moneeb Iqbal, who struck a patient 63 and guided his team towards the target. He was supported by Matthew Parker in a stand of 52 and Gordon Drummond, with whom Iqbal added just as many for the eighth wicket. With 10 needed off 13 balls, Scotland had the edge but Netherlands turned things around with two wickets off the next three balls, including Iqbal. But Drummond held his nerve during an unbeaten 33, along with No.11 Ross Lyons, to see his team through. Their cause was helped by the opposition who lost their nerve in the dying stages.Tom de Grooth dropped Drummond off the penultimate delivery of the match with Scotland still requiring three runs. The batsmen crossed for a single Mark Jonkman bowled a wide next ball that leveled the scores. The batsmen still ran across, thinking it was the final delivery of the match and when the ball was relayed to Jonkman at the bowler’s end he missed the stumps from close range to concede the winning run.Netherland’s competitive total was set up by half-centuries from Tom Cooper (87) and Bas Zuiderent, who smashed an unbeaten 55 off 34 balls to boost his team in the death overs. But, as it turned out, their efforts were inadequate.Drummond was delighted with his side’s thrilling win. “It was a fantastic victory considering the position we were in at 80-odd for five. It shows the character of the team. We did the same against India A last week. We just never give up and can put on partnerships down the order.”As soon as we got to about 190 for 7, I thought we were in a decent position as we still had the Powerplay to come and there would be more gaps in the field as a result. We could always get 35 from five overs in that Powerplay but then we lost two quick wickets and it could have gone either way at the end,” said Drummond who was full of praise for Moneeb.A collective bowling effort and a solid opening performance from Paul Stirling kicked off defending champions Ireland’s World Cricket League Division 1 campaign on a successful note in Rotterdam.Their opponents Kenya, fresh from a stand-off with their board regarding player contracts, were skittled for 163, before Stirling (87), supported by an unbeaten 59 from Alex Cusack, ensured a comfortable chase. For Ireland, Trent Johnson and Cusack grabbed two wickets each to help scupper a steady Kenyan start. Alex Obanda and Collins Obuya had forged a 44-run stand for the third wicket, but the bowlers struck to bag the last eight wickets for just 60 runs.In response, Stirling and Cusack combined in a 127-run stand for the second wicket to crush Kenya’s hopes and seal a seven-wicket win. Stirling was adjudged Man of the Match for his effort. “I’m happy to be among the runs so early in the tournament. It’s important that you set the trend with your performance and I think we have done that today,” he said.”I enjoyed batting out there and though I couldn’t score what would have been my first ODI century, I have no regrets. We were chasing a small score because we bowled very well. I thought the more you stayed at the wicket, the easier the batting got.”Afghanistan put in an admirable batting display to overcome a challenging target of 258 set by Canada in Voorburg. Captain Nawroz Mangal led the charge with an unbeaten 70, off just 58 balls, and the innings was also supported by half-centuries from opener Noor Ali and Mohammad Shahzad. Noor and Shahzad were involved in a 87-run stand, though both fell in quick succession. Afghanistan recovered quickly from those jolts, thanks to an attacking knock from their captain, who ensured victory was achieved with eight balls to spare.Canada’s innings had been shored up by their own captain Ashish Bagai, who top scored with 82, and some aggression in the late overs. Afghanistan didn’t help their own cause by conceding 34 extras, but their batsmen saw off the Canadian bowlers comfortably.

Dwayne Leverock, the burly left-arm spinner that flew to fame during the 2007 World Cup, has come out of international retirement to join Bermuda’s squad for the Intercontinental Shield game against UAE next month.Leverock, 38, became an one of the few positive icons from a maligned tournament in the Caribbean when he hurled his generous frame at slip to take a stunning one-handed catch and dismiss Indian batsman Robin Uthappa.After Bermuda failed to qualify for the 2011 World Cup in Asia during qualifiers in South Africa last year, Leverock announced his international retirement but stayed within the game by captaining club side Southampton Rangers. Now he is a surprise inclusion in the 25-strong squad that Bermuda national coach David Moore says he wants to form the basis of his team for the next year.”He’s made himself available,” said Moore. “He approached me about being involved. He told me that he was interested in being part of the programme and that’s where we are at the moment. We’ll just see how he goes, how he trains, and so on, but it’s good to have him back in the squad, although the competition is quite stiff from the likes of Rodney Trott and Joshua Gilbert.”The squad will be trimmed to 15 players for the four-day Intercontinental Shield match against UAE which starts on July 5.

Bowler of the day
Stuart Broad missed out on cheap wickets against Bangladesh last month after being sent on a “strength and conditioning” programme by the ECB, which is a fancy way of saying he was dispatched to the gym. All those hours of heavy weights paid dividends today, however, as Broad made a sluggish pitch look deceptively springy with a back-bending spell of 4 for 44 in ten overs. His natural aggression was allied to a splice-jangling length, and none of Australia’s batsmen looked at ease as he ripped out three wickets in his first six overs. Tim Paine may have been strangled down the leg-side, but Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke had no qualms about their dismissals, as Broad set the tone for another energetic England performance.Self-preservation of the day
The use of a short leg is a rarity in one-day cricket. So rare, in fact, that when Luke Wright overstepped during a feisty spell from the River Taff End, he inadvertently highlighted an anomaly in the game’s new Free Hit rules. Under the provisions of Law 24.2, no fielding changes are permissible ahead of a Free Hit delivery, but that prospect left Graeme Swann under the lid feeling distinctly uneasy. He assessed the likelihood of a scorching pull clattering into his ribs (high), divided it by the chances of taking a game-changing catch (non-existent), and after a brief consultation with captain and umpires, trotted off to the boundary’s edge to sit out the delivery (which, as it happens, was toe-ended to point).Non-catch of the day
The aforementioned Free Hit was doubly unfortunate for England, seeing as they would have picked up their fourth wicket in 20 overs had it not been for Wright’s faulty footwork. On 3, Cameron White fenced outside off, and snicked a low chance towards Craig Kieswetter, who responded with instincts he usually reserves for off-stump half-volleys to stretch athletically and low to his right, and cling on one-handed to a screaming catch. Seeing as White went on to anchor Australia’s innings with an unbeaten 86, it had the makings of a costly error.Catch of the day
At the age of 35 and with 347 ODI appearances under his belt already, Ricky Ponting is what you might describe as long in the tooth. But on the evidence of the catch he produced to extract Kevin Pietersen, he’s a long way from becoming a liability in the field. With the legspinner Steven Smith just entering the attack, Pietersen was predictably eager to mark his territory against the rookie, and a bludgeoned leg-side four was the start of his anticipated onslaught. Ponting, however, brought himself into the firing line at short midwicket, and from the very next delivery, he launched himself upwards and backwards to snatch a one-handed chance in his fingertips.Landmark of the day
Paul Collingwood launched his ODI career back in the summer of 2001, and was part of an England team that lost six matches out of six to Australia and Pakistan. He would not have imagined back then that he would go on to become his country’s most capped player in limited-overs cricket, let alone top the run-charts in that format as well. But, having overhauled Alec Stewart’s total of 170 matches during the recent tour of South Africa, Collingwood today eased past his runs tally as well. The shot that got him there was a nondescript pull to fine leg off Clint McKay, as he moved his score for the day to 33, and for his career to 4678. By the end of the match, he was sitting pretty on 4693 and was 62nd on the all-time list.Gamebreaker of the day
Compared to the heights that he reached at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday, Eoin Morgan produced a far from fluent performance, but in the final analysis, it did not matter. Australia improved their tactics against him, in particular by cutting out the driveable half-volleys, but the target was some 40 runs below par and there wasn’t any need for him to go after the game with anything like the same gusto. While he and Collingwood were chiselling away the requirement in an 83-run stand for the fourth wicket, he reached the boundary just once in his first 52 balls. His eventual dismissal for 52 from 64 left the crowd agog in silence, but with the requirement already down to three an over, England’s more-than-competent tail completed the job with room to spare.

Scorecard
In an intriguingly balanced match on a testing pitch, Hampshire have a platform from which they might just lift their spirits after a woefully poor beginning to the season with a win over the First Division leaders. It is an unsteady platform, for sure, represented by a lead of just 35 runs, but after losing four of their first five matches in the Championship, to be in with a chance at the half-way stage in this one must feel like progress.Much will depend, of course, on how they bowl on day three, given that a big target on the last day could be a daunting prospect for a batting line-up lacking Michael Carberry as well as Michael Lumb and Dimitri Mascarenhas. Variable bounce is likely to be a factor on a dry, cracked pitch.They will look again to Jimmy Adams, who missed out by four runs on a first century of the campaign but was the fulcrum nonetheless of a steadfast performance from Hampshire, whose record contrasts with Nottinghamshire’s four wins from four.It could be a good moment, too, for Neil McKenzie, the former South African Test batsman, to properly prove his value to the county after a slow start to his Hampshire career. The way in which he ended a run of low scores with a first half-century in the Championship perhaps signalled a timely return to form.Two partnerships were pivotal on day two, the first of which saw Adams and Chris Benham add 115 after the loss of nightwatchman James Tomlinson left them 39 for 2.At the start of it, Darren Pattinson bowled superbly, maintaining excellent control, finding movement off the pitch as well as through the air and beating the bat repeatedly. He looked a bit like the Pattinson of two years ago, before he earned his solitary and controversial Test call-up. James Whitaker, the England selector, was looking on, as he often was then, although it would be a surprise if he is mentioned in dispatches this time.Charlie Shreck was no less impressive and when he and Pattinson gave way, Andre Adams and Paul Franks kept up the pressure. In an enthralling contest, the Hampshire pair were made to work for their runs.Indeed, their application was impressive, in particular from Jimmy Adams, who grafted for 153 balls to get to 50, although he should have been caught at second slip off his namesake’s bowling on 37, Neil Edwards spilling the chance.Benham, who had a painful blow on the elbow facing Adams the bowler, survived a difficult chance to the wicketkeeper off Pattinson on 20 soon after lunch.Adams at last found an opportunity to attack when Nottinghamshire introduced Samit Patel’s left-arm spin an hour into the afternoon session. His next 46 runs came much more briskly, all bar six of them in boundaries, but Nottinghamshire regained the initiative again when Shreck broke the stand by bowling Benham.Then Franks, who had been turned down in a vigorous appeal for lbw moments earlier, found some extra bounce and movement to Adams, who was caught behind off a thin contact and walked without waiting for the umpire’s verdict.Franks, whose all-round talents saw him accelerated into the England one-day side a decade ago only for a knee injury to blunt his progress, has been in and out of the Nottinghamshire side in recent years but seems to be thriving again now, with Mark Ealham’s retirement offering the chance to forge a permanent place. Full of confidence, he struck again four balls later in the same over, James Vince hitting him straight to Steven Mullaney at midwicket. Vince is a young man who might interest Whitaker and company at some stage, but not on this occasion.With his quick demise, Hampshire were five down and still 102 adrift. Nottinghamshire sensed a chance to take the upper hand decisively.But McKenzie and Nic Pothas had other ideas. Adding 74 in 23 overs, they swung the balance again towards Hampshire before, Pattinson, with the new ball, trapped McKenzie leg before with a fuller delivery.Adams, whose last spell was his best, dismissed Pothas and mopped up the tail to finish with 4 for 56, but not before Sean Ervine had eked out a valuable unbeaten 31 for a lead of 35.

Overview

Dwayne Bravo can win matches with any of the three disciplines and West Indies need him to fire•Brooks La Touche Photography and DigicelCricket

West Indies cricket continues to lurch from crisis to crisis and each time there is a glimmer of light they find a way to hit new depths. Ottis Gibson has returned home to take on the demanding role of trying to instil some fight and spirit back into the team and at least the recent one-day series victory against Zimbabwe reversed a depressing run of results. In truth, though, a revival has rarely felt further away.However, a quick-fire Twenty20 tournament could provide the kick that is desperately needed. Throw in home advantage and, hopefully, some passionate support from the locals and it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that they could last the distance – at least until the semi-finals. Any tournament is better the longer the hosts can maintain a challenge and it only takes a couple of innings from Chris Gayle – whose form is a barometer for the rest of his side – and suddenly the belief will begin to return.In the broader picture it is vital that this tournament is a success for the Caribbean after the debacle of the 2007 World Cup. The organisers have promised a more sympathetic handling of the event than three years back, by embracing the local culture, but nothing would help more than seeing Gayle lead his team out in the final. It’s a long shot, but not impossible.

Twenty20 pedigree

They reached the semi-final stage in England last year – dispatching Australia and the hosts on their way – while Gayle still holds the record for the highest individual score in World Twenty20 tournaments with his 117 in the opening game of the first event in South Africa. Of late their form has been less impressive with an embarrassing defeat against Zimbabwe in Trinidad when they limped to 79 for 7 chasing 106 on a turgid surface. The opening match against Ireland is a potential banana skin, but they have a good record against England in Twenty20 having beaten them in last year’s tournament.

Strengths and weaknesses

West Indies are not short on batsmen who can clear the boundary. Brett Lee is still waiting for Gayle’s strike from last year to come down somewhere near The Oval, while Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard are also fearsome strikers of the ball. One area of concern will be the pace-bowling department which is still without Fidel Edwards while Jerome Taylor is nursing his way back from injury. There is also the fear that if things start to go wrong they can unravel very quickly. In a short tournament like this you can be gone before it’s barely started.

Key men

Of course it’s difficult to look past Chris Gayle because the team responds to their captain but Dwayne Bravo, despite a pretty woeful IPL where he scored 61 runs in eight innings and claimed four wickets at 57 for Mumbai Indians, is a wonderful cricketer and is the embodiment of the spirit that the team so desperately needs. He will want to reconfirm his credentials and should rise to the big occasion. Often outstanding at the death with the ball, he is among the finest fielders on the world.

X-factor

Sulieman Benn doesn’t come across as the most natural of Twenty20 cricketers; he isn’t the best of fielders and can’t offer much with the bat but with the ball he could be a vital weapon if the pitches remain slow. Don’t be surprised if he takes the new ball, as he did against Zimbabwe when he finished with the extraordinary figures of 4 for 6.

Vital stats

As the IPL season heads to the halfway mark, Chennai Super Kings star batsman Matthew Hayden, who participated in an online chat with Cricinfo’s readers, believed that the key to reviving his side’s lukewarm campaign was to get on a winning roll.”I love the Chennai Super Kings and being in Chennai and I still believe we have a good chance to make the semi-finals, but as you know we have to start winning and keep winning,” Hayden said. “Unfortunately we have had a few results which could have easily gone the other way and which would have made a great difference to our season. However I do not like to look backwards and I’m now looking forward with a very positive mind and with a very determined team to deliver the results that we know that we can achieve.”Chennai’s plans of making the semi-finals have hit a rut, with five defeats, including four on the trot, out of seven games. Hayden thinks that the side’s inability to strike a winning combination is to blame, but is confident that they can turn it around. “I think we have been trying to establish in the first half of this tournament what our best side is, it has changed a number of times, with mixed results. This game, coming tomorrow night, is the opportunity to have that decision to find our balance and play the cricket that our talent is capable of,” Hayden said.As expected, a lot of questions were aboutn Hayden’s revolutionary Mongoose bat, which he has used with mixed results in the IPL. “I actually first started toying with the idea before the last World Cup, when I started hitting balls at practice sessions with a baseball bat and was surprised at how well I was hitting them and how far the ball would travel.”It gave me great leverage, as you would have seen already, and there is no question it gives you extra power when you are in an attacking position and wanting to dominate the bowlers,” Hayden said.When asked whether the unusual dimensions of the Mongoose – it has a longer handle and a shorter blade than normal bats – made it difficult to wield, especially while facing short-pitched bowling, Hayden admitted that it took him a while adapting. “It was a bit intimidating at first with the shorter blade. After hitting thousands of balls with it, I was mentally prepared to play with it,” he said.Hayden welcomed the expansion of the IPL and was of the opinion that the inherent tight schedules were not to blame for the high number of player injuries during the tournament.”I’m pleased with the introduction of the two new teams into the IPL for next season and also very happy that Mr Modi has announced there will be no more expansion for many years to come, as I believe that 10 teams is the perfect number. And I also know that if you train and prepare well for the IPL and have a very good support team around you, that injuries can be kept to a minimum, but then again, injuries are a part of the game,” he said.Hayden shed light on his unique tendency of standing well outside the crease to fast bowlers. “Standing out of the crease is a sign of strategy rather than of straight out aggression. For instance, against [Lasith] Malinga, whose execution of the yorker is second to none, I stand two metres out of the crease and the yorker becomes a knee-high full toss. This is a way of changing someone’s game,” Hayden explained.He may have intimidated several bowlers during his time, with his imposing presence and aggressive intent, but Hayden admitted that it was the other way around. “Truth is I was afraid of every bowler, but I soon realised the only thing a bowler could do that could hurt me was the thing that he held in his hand, the cricket ball. Only if I watched it and executed the hundreds of thousands of balls that I have hit over my lifetime could I focus my energy on that,” he said.Hayden singled out Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Parthiv Patel, Robin Uthappa and Shikhar Dhawan as the young Indian players to watch out for in the future.

Innings of the dayWho would have thought that the sight of Ian Bell marching to the wicket could carry with it such reassurance? And who would have thought that a man who has been habitually derided for “soft runs” could attain such fulfilment from a century against Bangladesh? But strange things have happened to Ian Bell this winter, and his chipper tenth Test century was the bedrock of an otherwise jittery England innings. For the first time in his career he was the only man on the card to reach three figures (though Tim Bresnan may yet ruin that statistic) and until he fell in the final hour of the day, his average against Bangladesh had reached a heady 488. No matter. For England’s sake, it was invaluable.Dismissal of the dayJonathan Trott’s second-day 64 was “like watching paint dry”, according to Darren Gough, who added, via Twitter, that innings such as his are “killing cricket”. So it was either a cruel misfortune or a blessed relief when Trott’s resumption was curtailed in the space of eight deliveries this morning. He had added no runs – to no great surprise – when he propped half-forward to Shakib Al Hasan, only for the ball to loop off the pad, onto his elbow, and curl agonisingly and inexorably into his off stump.Controversy of the dayTo make any real headway against a determined England line-up, Bangladesh needed some luck to back up their determination. But as Andy Flower admitted in the build-up to the series, “I think sometimes the bigger teams get things going their way”, and sure enough each of England’s three key batsmen on the third day got a reprieve. Matt Prior might have been pinned lbw on 9 by a Rubel Hossain inswinger, but went on to make 62; Bresnan appeared to nick a bat-pad catch on 5, but was still there at the close on 74; and when Bell walked across his stumps to Abdur Razzak on 82, an irate Jamie Siddons charged out of the dressing-room to gesticulate that it ought to have been given out lbw.Drop of the daySome let-offs, however, couldn’t be blamed on the umpire, and the one that Imrul Kayes handed to Bell, on 120, had the makings of a passion-killer, coming as it did in the third over after tea, and with Bangladeshi heads already beginning to drop. With Shafiul Islam working up a good head of steam, Bell flicked loosely to midwicket, where Imrul dived forward but couldn’t cling onto the chance. And at 381 for 5, with a first-innings deficit of less than 40, England seemed set to push on to the 500-odd total that Kevin Pietersen had predicted on the second evening. But to Bangladesh’s credit, things didn’t quite pan out that way.Mow of the dayPietersen also claimed that it was virtually impossible to remove a well-set batsman on this pitch, but England somehow contrived some impressive ways to end their stays. For sheer lack of gorm, few dismissals rivalled that of Matt Prior, whose already breezy innings was given a bit of jet-propulsion when Shakib Al Hasan served up a brace of help-yourself full-tosses that were readily tonked to the boundary. But with his dander up, Prior forgot that Shakib bad-balls are the exception, not the norm. Two balls later he skipped down the track to attempt a third leg-side four, but yorked himself sublimely as the delivery tweaked out of the rough and into off stump.Stodge of the dayBresnan’s batting is highly fancied by the England management, despite the fact that his only previous Test innings was a non-descript 9 against West Indies last summer. But in a team of all round potential, he has been pushed up the order ahead of both Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad, and today he proved his worth with his maiden Test half-century. It wasn’t a pretty affair by any means, and in fact his 74 from 214 balls put Trott’s 64 from 195 in the shade. But seeing as his primary role is to take wickets, and his secondary role was to support Bell in a 143-run stand, it was rather more forgivable.Bowler of the dayAmid all the gripes, one man rumbled on. Shakib’s end-of-day analysis read 57-27-99-4, a testament to his personal powers of endurance on a day when his team might easily have lost their focus. He still has time to claim his five-for with two wickets still to claim, but he had a hand – quite literally – in one other wicket to fall, when his fingertips brushed a Bresnan drive into the non-striker’s stumps, with Graeme Swann left stranded. It proved to be a timely dose of good fortune, with Broad’s late dismissal redressing the balance significantly.