The ongoing Chennai Test between Bangladesh and India has brought attention to Bangladesh's reliance on left-handed batters in their top-order. Out of the top four batters, all are left-handers—Shadman Islam, Zakir Hasan, Najmul Hossain Shanto, and Mominul Haque. India's bowlers have capitalized on this, using deliveries from around the wicket to cause problems for the Tigers' batters.

Bangladesh have long struggled with this vulnerability, especially with pacers targeting their left-handers using inward-moving deliveries. This challenge was evident once again in the Chennai Test, where the Indian seamers exploited this weakness to get Bangladesh's top-order batters out either bowled or lbw.

At the post-day press conference, Bangladesh batting coach David Hemp addressed the issue of having four left-handers at the top of the order. “Yes or no. I think yes, they're all left-handers. I guess from a bowling line point of view, it might be similar, but they're all different. They all score off different lengths. They've got different strengths. So it's a bit of yes or no. But we don't really look at that. I know one day, cricket, you mix a match, you often see the left-right combination, but I don't think that's an issue for us,” Hemp said.

Despite the struggles, Hemp remains optimistic about Bangladesh's chances on a decent batting wicket. “We had a great session early on when we got India’s six wickets for 144 runs. The pitch had moisture, and our bowlers did well. This shows our skill levels are strong, but when you look at our batting, there are areas we need to improve. We need to keep getting better, both in bowling and batting," he added.

Hemp also believes that the pitch is still good for batting and holds hope for a positive outcome. “I think there's a couple of things we regret. I think, obviously, we had a great session early on when we got India’s six wickets for 144 runs. We were building on that. So that was unfortunate. I think in the first innings, I believe the skill level within our group was good enough to deal with those balls,” Hemp added.

“Across that first innings batting, certainly when we sit back and look at it, review the game whenever that ends, that's certainly a discussion point in terms of how we improve our performance. Because that all we want to do is how we get better and how we keep moving forward as a group, whether from a batting perspective or from a bowling perspective. In terms of days to back, it's still a good wicket. Yesterday, we've seen that Ashwin had obviously got a couple of balls to bounce quite significantly. But you can still score. So for us, tomorrow is still the reasonable surface. So just like 360 to win and anything is possible. Let's see what happens tomorrow.”

With 357 runs still required to pull off a historic chase, Bangladesh face a daunting task, but the team remains optimistic about their prospects on day four.