Final Result: Australia 377 & 87/3 beat Bangladesh 305 & 157 by 7 wickets
Aussies convincingly beat Bangladesh in Bangladesh by 3 wickets. This win for Australia wasn’t just coming, but long time coming. Even though they lost to Bangladesh in first test, margin was of mere 20 runs, about an odd inning from a tailender. Though Bangladesh won, measure of performance of Aussies said a different story. A bit more patience from David Warner could have them home even then.
However, that measure truly stood up in the second test match to win a priceless test match in Asia, against an evolving Bangladesh team, who have become roaring tigers in test matches – by beating New Zealand and England in a test match – at home in a period of last year. The work on these measures started way back , at the mid-series against South Africa at home, which they lost very badly.
Rise of Peter Handscomb
With the string of poor performances, Australia finally decided to leave out the ageing players, and give chance to young and promising players from Sheffield Shield. Peter – PSP – Handscomb is one of those youngsters. He scored truck load of runs – including his career best score of 2015 – for Victoria, in three consistent Shield seasons. Once called up into Australian squad, he grabbed his chances with both the hands, and scored runs. In his first seven test, he never scored less than fifty, which is a feat not one has achieve in world cricket.
That confidence, and experience of scoring runs came handy during his gutsy inning of 82 – during Australia’s first innings at Chittagong – to put Australia in firm control of a test match. He along with David Warner, grind Bangladesh into the dusty spinning pitch, never to recover from the position.
Evolution of Nathan Lyon
With 22 wickets in a series of just two test matches – even more than any Bangladeshi bowler -, Nathan Lyon proved to be a trump card for Australia. Six months ago, when he played a series in India, he looked a better bowler but was not able to deliver a result. However, he proved his worth against quality BD batting line up, to win a test match by claiming thirteen wickets – seven in first inning and vital six in second – on a spin friendly wicket of Chittagong.
At almost every second ball he delivered, he looked like taking a wicket – troubling the batsmen on almost every other ball he delivered nonetheless. He learnt his lessons from first test to trap Tamim Iqbal with a straighter one, who had scored heavily earlier. That important breakthrough eventually brought down downfall of other batsmen -except Mushfiq and Shakib – who were not really able to handle spin tricks used by Lyon.
Patience of David Warner
David Warner is a hard-hitting aggressive player, who likes to score runs at will, which has allowed his quick rise to international circuit faster than any one thought of. However, it is the same aggression that has brought down his downfall in Asia, especially in Test matches. Never before a first test match against Bangladesh, he had scored a century in Asia, and was an easy pray on spin friendly pitches.
Thanks to Australian selectors for not discarding him, his prolific run scoring outside Asia and his adjustments to his game and temperament, he finally put aside his aggression to score his slowest century in first test match at Dhaka, which nearly pulled off a game for Australia. However, he further corrected his game to finally score an important century, which helped Australia pulled off a win.
Around these three factors, likes of Pat Cummins, Mat Renshaw, skipper Steven Smith and Ashton Agar showed the qualities that Australia are building up since the start of their test summer. To add into it, their test tour of India six months ago also helped to gain the experience on Asian conditions they vitally used in Bangladesh test tour.
As they say, long term goals and work on them always bring about results that you are out to achieve, and that’s what Australia has achieved by winning a test match against Bangladesh in Bangladesh.
