Despite a great fight from Shakib Al Hasan with the bat, Bangladesh lost the Dhaka Test to touring Pakistan by an innings and eight runs on Wednesday evening at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.
Bangladesh needed to bat the whole of the fifth and last day to save the match. But they could not do that as Pakistan bowlers were disciplined enough to take 13 wickets of Bangladesh in a day to seal the game.
About two and half days of this were washed out due to persistent rain caused by Bay depression. It created a hope that Bangladesh would draw this Test, but they failed to do that and lost the match.
There was no play in the final session of day one, only 6.2 overs on day two, and no play on day 3, a delayed start on day four; yet a result was unexpected. But Pakistan kept the match alive after declaring their first innings at 300 for four.
In reply, Bangladesh tumbled for 87/10 in their first innings with Sajid Khan bagging eight wickets— his best in his Test career. Bangladesh were at 76 for seven at the end of day four, and they only added 11 runs on the fifth day morning with their overnight total and lost the last three wickets in 28 minutes.
Bangladesh fell short of 14 runs from avoiding a follow-on. Pakistan have enforced the follow-on, the hosts lost four wickets in 25 runs which threw Bangladesh’s last hope away.
In the fifth wicket stand, Mushfiqur Rahim and Liton Das added 73 runs. This partnership had injected some life into the match before Liton fell prey to Sajid off a short-pitched ball. Liton pushed it directly to the square leg area where Fawad Alam took the catch in the second attempt.
In the sixth wicket stand, Mushfiqur and Shakib added another 49 runs, but with the run-out of Mushfiqur, Bangladesh’s last ray of hope faded away.
However, Shakib was firm at the other end of the wicket until the last ball of the 77th over when bowled him for 63 off 130 balls. Shakib looked so impatient right before losing his wicket as he played some haphazard shots.
Bangladesh were all out with 14 minutes of play remaining in the day. If Bangladesh were able to score only nine more runs, they would have secured a lead, and they would have gotten a 10-minute innings break- which would have resulted in a draw as there was not enough time for a break.
In the last innings of the match, Sajid scalped four wickets, which completed 12 wickets for him in the match, and Shaheen Afridi and Hasan Ali scalped two wickets each.
With the win in the first Test by eight wickets in Chattogram, Pakistan sealed the series 0-2.
Both Bangladesh and Pakistan started the new cycle of the ICC World Test Championship with this series. In the next series of event, Bangladesh will take on New Zealand from January 1, 2022.
The Tigers are scheduled to take the flight for New Zealand on Wednesday night. BCB has already announced an 18-member squad for the New Zealand series including Shakib who later withdrew his name for personal reasons. To replace Shakib, Bangladesh included Fazle Rabbi in the squad who scored most runs in the recent edition of the National Cricket League— country’s biggest First-class cricket event.
Source: United News of Bangladesh