"Toughest day' was the common feeling at the home tent as the star-studded Indian batting line-up expectedly capitalised on their coin luck to put the Tigers to the test under the hot and humid conditions on a tailor-made batting wicket.

On the way back to the dressing room, young all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan faced a question about how he enjoyed his debut in Test cricket and the answer was deadpan: Nothing.

The reason was simple. India have already amassed 295-3 at stumps with two of their prolific batsmen -- Sachin Tendulkar (80) and Sourav Ganguly (82) -- at the crease.

Undoubtedly the local bowlers were at the receiving end as there was hardly anything for them on the surface and it was hard to bowl in such a difficult condition as well against the superb batting line-up.

"It was really a hard day for us and at a very crucial stage we missed Rajib (Shahadat Hossain) because he was complaining with a knee injury. We didn't want to take any risk but it was difficult to continue attack with a bowler short in such a tough condition," said Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar, who took complete rest in the second session due to illness.

But there was also glimpses of bright moments on the first day of the first Test for the Tigers and the man who produced them was none other than pace spearhead Mashrafe Bin Mortaza who along with his new-ball partner Shahadat Hossain threatened the Indian batsmen for a while.

The 'Narail Express' once again showed that he can ignite his side even under a difficult condition as the right-arm paceman stunned his opponents by removing opener Wasim Jaffer in the first ball of the day and by also dismissing the other opener Dinesh Karthik after lunch when Bangladesh tightened their grip on the game.

So, he was the right man to tell how difficult the situation was.

"My first target was to surprise the batsmen," was his reaction when he was asked about his first-ball success.

"It was not easy to bowl in such difficult conditions and under the immense heat but I tried my best to be successful. You should understand that we bowled against one of the best batting line-ups in the world. There was nothing in the pitch for us but still I tried to bowl with my normal pace," he said.

In the post-lunch session, Bangladesh got two wickets almost back-to-back to bounce back in the match but Tendulkar and Ganguly snatched the initiative as they peeled off an unbeaten 163-run for the third wicket.

"The two batsmen gave no chance and it was not easy to bowl against them on a batsmen-friendly wicket.

"In this kind of wicket you should bowl in the right area and try to stop the batsmen from scoring runs. I think we still have the chance to do something in the second day," said Mashrafe.

Another thing which impressed many was the way Bangladesh vice-captain Mohammad Ashraful handled his bowlers during the absence of Bashar in the entirety of the second session when Bangladesh looked well-placed by taking two quick wickets.

The way the young man, considered the future Bangladesh captain, put pressure on his opponents was encouraging, especially his decision to bring Shahadat Hossain back into attack in the place of Mashrafe proved to be the right decision. Shahadat brilliantly got the advantage of extra bounce to take the wicket of Rahul Dravid (61), who helped his side recover from the early damage, adding 124 runs for the second wicket with Karthik (56).