Bangladesh's evolutionary leap in Darwin

Bangladesh have now won 100% of their Tests in Australia over the last 15 years. And Cricket Australia made that happen.

Here is a funny story: Australia once had to cancel a series because they forgot when the Olympics were on.

In 2008, Australia were due to host Bangladesh for a two-Test series. They scrapped it. The reason given was that they had only just realised that these matches would clash with the Beijing Olympics.

That is a long time ago, but let me fill you in. From the moment China was awarded the Olympic games, they made a very big deal of the fact the Oympics would start at 08:08 on the 8th of the eighth month in the year 2008. China loves that number, and they talked about it for years.

It wasn’t until 2008 that someone at Cricket Australia looked at a calendar and realised they had planned Tests at that time. But there is weird wording in that: it wasn’t that the series was scrapped, it was just postponed. And because it was Bangladesh, it was barely reported at the time. Someone just erased the schedule, and the world moved on.

And in 2010 these two teams would play again, free of the Chinese Olympic party.

Yet I can find no official fixture list, or tour announcement, and in 2010, Bangladesh did not tour Australia. Maybe the Winter Olympics clashed this time.

In 2018, (a decade later) another tour to Australia was finally scheduled for Bangladesh. That did not happen. This time, Australia were not hiding their reasons; they just said, they wouldn’t make money off it so why bother.

But of course, it gets funnier. Then CEO James Sutherland actually said that it was because it was up against footy season.

So Cricket Australia’s official response to cancelling this tour was that they scheduled a series during the Australian Rules and Rugby League season, and now those sports were so big that cricket couldn’t get a foot in.

Those two sports had reigned supreme in the Australian winter for more than 100 years by this point. Sutherland was based in Melbourne (as is Cricket Australia), yet he planned a tour during footy season and then used that as a reason to cancel it.

It’s like saying I planned a cricket match in the Swiss Alps for December, but am sad to find out it has been snowed off.

It is a lie, an obvious one.

It also came only a few years after Australia decided not to tour Bangladesh for safety concerns, and then also didn’t send their team to the 2016 Under-19 World Cup. So for those keeping score at home: 2008, 2010, 2018, in addition to 2015 and 2016, Australia did not want to play against or in Bangladesh. In 2020, Australia were due to tour when Covid hit, and the tour was mutually called off.

That means for 12 years, Australia barely played Bangladesh because of the Olympics, football, money, security, and a global pandemic. It’s quite the list, and really what it says is, “we just don’t want to play you”.

Sutherland basically admitted this when he said that Australia would only play Bangladesh at home when the World Test Championship made them.

And even then, it was because turning down Bangladesh for a Test might hurt their chance of winning the WTC. And Australia like winning things.

For a more honest view, let’s turn to a media figure.

Ian Higgins was very clear on the Grade Cricketer podcast beforehand that he did not want to “learn the Bangladeshi players’ names” and that “this is about my boys do(ing) it in August in Darwin. That is what this is about. I don’t give a fuck about some Bangladeshi player doing his best”.

This is a comedy cricket podcast, but with two Australians. It is not meant to be taken seriously, and of of course, after saying this, they will get roasted online for days while also getting heaps of engagement at the same time.

The problem isn’t with Higgo. It’s that his comments are basically what Cricket Australia has been saying in coded language since 2008. One is a podcaster, the other is running the game for Australia.

After all these fake excuses and disappearing tours, Bangladesh turn up to Australia because the WTC compels them to, and the Aussies want to win that, so they happily lose some money this time in order to get a chance at another trophy, and then their team is utterly embarrassed at the start of their epic one-year campaign.

Does it make up for all the disrespect Cricket Australia has shown Bangladesh cricket? No. Is it funny as fuck? Yes.

Bangladesh have now won 100% of their Tests in Australia over the last 15 years. And Cricket Australia made that happen. Quite a punchline.

****

For eleven overs, Australia had won the toss on a greenish pitch and survived the new ball. Not always well. Jake Weatherald was playing some extraordinary leaves, withdrawing his bat like it was a magic trick he had learned from one YouTube tutorial. Travis Head looked very much like a middle-order player thrown up the order. But they survived.

When Weatherald was playing shots, he was putting everything into them. Part of that was that he was trying to lay into wide, full balls. So he chased them and played them like a man who misread his train timetable. Eventually, he was close enough to nick one behind.

Day one at Darwin, most of Australia’s dismissals followed this pattern. It was tough: plays and misses, movement both ways, but then a fairly cheap wicket. They had no real idea what to do on this pitch.

Bangladesh did. Ebadot Hossain bowled a beautiful line just outside off, with constant changes of his length. Taskin Ahmed was slow around off stump, keeping edges and the wickets in play at all times. And Hasan Mahmud wobbled the ball in both directions. He beat the outside edge, and then hit the batters.

He took the wickets, but the others bowled every bit as well. It was a team effort by Bangladesh seamers, even without Nahid Rana.

Then Bangladesh batted. Where the Australians (outside of Steve Smith) seemed to have no real idea what to do on this surface, the touring batters on a very foreign pitch to them realised you could survive. And over time, slow runs would come. It wasn’t Bazballian; it was old-fashioned Test batting, 426 runs at 3.08 runs an over. They ground out the impatient Australians who used eight bowlers.

The Aussies now had a template on how to score runs on this pitch. Instead, Mahmud delivered a hard-length ball around the top of offstump which Weatherald tried to score off, and was bowled. Then he did the same to Head, with the same result. When Smith departed, the game needed a miracle for Australia, but the markets still believed in them. Instead, Bangladesh produced a nine-wicket win.

To put this in a context that Cricket Australia would understand: Bangladesh won gold, and Australia did not qualify for the finals.

****

Bangladesh have beaten Pakistan in Pakistan, New Zealand in New Zealand, Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe, West Indies in West Indies and Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka within the last ten years. Before that, they had won three away Tests in their history. Two against a striking West Indies team (which almost doesn’t count), and one in Zimbabwe.

Compare that to the last four years where they have beaten Pakistan twice, and with ease, the West Indies, and now this win in Darwin.

This is a different Bangladesh. It is not full of big names, but it has solid batting, a decent allrounder, and multiple seam-bowling options. The last bit is probably the most important, as it makes them a spoiler team, like the win in New Zealand.

But this is a better team than anything they’ve ever had, made for touring in a way previous sides were not.

However, this is not just the story of Bangladesh; 2024 had some epic upsets. And if you look at the trend, it is clear: that’s from fewer draws. The wobbleball, teams playing for points in WTC matches and Bazball have sped up Tests. None of this is a shock to anyone.

But what happens to those former draws?

If you look at home team wins compared to away wins and draws, it is a little messy, but there is a pattern.

Subtracting the home wins, you can see that draws went down, but away victories did not go up. So what happened here was that those former draws became wins by the home team. But in 2024, our magical year of Tests, that changes. Suddenly, draws disappeared, and most of those ended up as wins for the away team.

This is the age of the upset. Test cricket has never been more competitive. And because of that, we are seeing away wins at record rates.

You might think we are overstating that a little, but this is Tests since 1950. And away teams have never been this good.

Yet, nothing I have just told you will change your surprise at this result. Especially if you were following the tour game before, where Bangladesh were rolled for 54 by a 22-year-old with one first-class game.

This is an upset, a surprise, a huge moment - no matter the numbers and the changes in our game.

Bangladesh went from not being deemed worthy of playing Australia to pantsing them.

For Bangladesh cricket, this is huge. Beating Pakistan in Pakistan was the gold standard; winning that Test in New Zealand was the hope of a new day. But rolling into Darwin and destroying the team that didn’t even see any point in hosting them? The biggest, baddest team in cricket history. And not just winning it, but to use the local vernacular, spanking them - this is something else.

Bangladesh came in as a well-drilled professional team; they were handed the best conditions, and they milked them until they were well ahead of the game. When the opposition fought back, they were patient and waited them out.

For a very long time, Australian cricket treated Bangladesh like they were a joke. Who is laughing now?