Despite being poised to battle Bangladesh's spinners in their fourth innings, West Indies batting coach Floyd Reifer said on Friday (October 30) that his team would adopt an aggressive approach, looking to take the pitch out of the equation.

Bangladesh were in danger of squandering their first-innings advantage against West Indies in the Mirpur Test after losing six wickets for just 53 runs in their second innings. Spinners have accounted for 20 of the 26 wickets to fall so far in the match, suggesting they will have a major say in determining its outcome. However, Reifer insisted that a defensive approach would hardly guarantee success.

“You have to look to score," he said after the day's play. "You can't bat for survival on a pitch like that because one ball is going to spin, one's going to keep low. So I think that once you show that positive intent, always looking for scoring opportunities, then you put yourself in a better position to make runs. The objective of the game is to score runs. So just because the pitch is turning and keeping a little low, we're going to take the pitch out of the equation, where we just focus on how we want to play. We're not going to focus on what the pitch is doing. We're going to focus on how we want to play, how we want to bat in these conditions,” he added.

Reifer said a two-week camp in Chennai had helped prepare his batters for Bangladesh's spin attack, with the work already showing in Mirpur. "We spent two weeks in Chennai, we batted a lot of spin there and guys batted for long periods of time,” he pointed out. “As you can see, we are better players of spin. We are well-equipped. We've done a lot of work on our batting against spin bowling in terms of our rotation, in terms of stressing on our defence and scoring options. So whatever score that they give us tomorrow, we're going to chase them down.

“We'll try to enforce batting with intent, keep looking for scoring opportunities. Obviously, the pitch is low, playing a bit low, some balls are spinning. When you go back on the back foot, it's about going back low, trying to score in front of the wicket. But the main thing for us is just maintaining that positive intent — intent in defence, intent in rotation, intent in scoring options and boundary options,” he added.

Reifer said the first hour of play on Saturday would be crucial, with West Indies looking to wrap up Bangladesh's innings quickly before taking on the chase. “At 79 for 6, when we start tomorrow we'll try to go through the last few batters as quickly as possible," he said. "If we're going to chase 125 runs, I think that's really possible for us to chase 125 on a pitch like that. But obviously you have to get early wickets, so the first hour tomorrow is going to be critical in terms of breaking that partnership. And once we break that partnership, then we could finish off the job.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh off-spinner Nayeem Hasan said that his side would be well placed if they could build a second-innings lead of over 200 runs. Nayeem and Jaker Ali offered some resistance with the bat, putting together an unbeaten 26-run stand to take the hosts to 79 for 6 at stumps on the third day.

“We will try to score as many runs as we can," Nayeem said. “A 200-run lead would be very good. We will try to get even more,” he added.

Nayeem said there was no specific plan between the pair when he joined Jaker at the crease, explaining that his approach was to react to each delivery and keep the scoreboard moving on a surface offering considerable turn. “There was no specific plan like that," he pointed out. "I was trying to react to whatever delivery came my way. On this wicket, you have to keep scoring. The ball is turning, and when you keep the scoreboard moving, the bowlers will come under pressure,” he said.

Nayeem, who took four wickets in West Indies' first innings to reach 50 Test wickets, becoming the fastest Bangladesh spinner to achieve the milestone in terms of deliveries bowled, said he was happy to repay the faith shown in him by captain Najmul Hossain Shanto.

“Shanto bhai told me early on, when I'd gone a bit off for an over, 'Bowl in one area, you'll bowl all day.' When he said that, I thought I'd just bowl in one area and bowl well without giving away runs. He told me, 'Even if you bowl badly, you'll bowl all day today.' That's what he said.

“I tried to bowl in one area. I was getting help from the pitch; there was bounce and turn. I tried to bowl in a good area, and I believed the chance would come."