“They’ve certainly come a long way over the last couple of years.” This is what Steve Smith said at the start of his post-match presser after Bangladesh registered a historic win over Australia in Dhaka on Wednesday (August 30).
Chasing 265 to maintain the 100 percent record against Bangladesh in Tests, Australia were looking well-set to overhaul the target after David Warner’s maiden Test ton in the subcontinent. The hard-hitting opening batsman was dismissed for 112 with the scoreboard reading a healthy 158 for 3. However, the match turned on its head soon after his departure as Shakib Al Hasan and Taijul Islam ran riot to leave the visitors reeling at 199 for 8.
A 33-run knock from Pat Cummins revived Australia’s slim hopes but it all ended when Islam trapped Josh Hazlewood to end Australia’s innings on 244 as Bangladesh took a 1-0 lead in the 2-game series by winning the first Test by 20 runs.
Speaking after the match, Smith, who has now lost 6 of the 8 Tests in Asia as captain, admitted that Bangladesh are a dangerous side at home, not forgetting to mention the Tigers’ win over Ashes rivals England last year.
“I think they’re a dangerous side, particularly here at home as we’ve seen. They’ve just beaten us, they obviously beat England not too long ago, so they’re a team that’s confident in these conditions. They’ve got some good players. I thought that Tamim Iqbal looked very good at the top of the order, chanced his arm and played some good aggressive cricket. Shakib played particularly well in the first innings and bowled well in both innings as well, so their experienced players really stood up in this game for them. I thought they played very well,” the Australian captain added.
Tamim starred for the hosts in both the innings, scoring 71 and 78 but it was Shakib who proved to be the difference between the two sides. Shakib was the one who triggered Australia’s collapse by dismissing Warner and Smith in quick succession as he finished the match with 10 wickets and a half-century.
“I thought he played quite aggressively in the first innings. Any width he got, he put away. We were probably a little bit short and wide, our fast bowlers, and our spinners probably just didn’t hit their lengths quite as consistently as we would have liked. I think that’s the key to what Shakib does really well. His lengths are spectacular and he lets the ball do whatever it needs to do off a good length. It’s the hardest ball to play, the one that’s on a good length, and I thought our spinners were a little bit inconsistent with their lengths,” Smith added.
After the disastrous 3-0 whitewash in Sri Lanka last year, Steve Smith & Co. had shown a lot of promise by winning a Test in India earlier this year but their inability to perform well on subcontinent pitches has been exposed once again. When asked about that, Smith defended his team by calling it young and hoped that the team will continue to improve.
“I think we’re still a young team, obviously some new players that have come in only last year in the summer and some guys that are still trying to find their way. we’re a young team and we’re a team that hopefully is going to continue to improve. I thought we made some really good strides on our last tour to India, albeit we lost that series. We made some good strides there but as we spoke about before, we made a few of those mistakes in the first innings that were disappointing. We’ve still got a long way to go to rise up in the rankings and hopefully as a group we can continue to improve and get better,” he said.
Smith concluded by expressing his disappointment over the loss and admitted that the team from Down Under is under ‘plenty of pressure’.
“Obviously we’re down 1-0 in a two match series so plenty of pressure to perform and hopefully level the series in Chittagong. it’s another good challenge for this group. Obviously disappointing not to get the result we would have liked here but we’re obviously going to be looking forward to Chittagong and hopefully we’ll be able to right a few of the wrongs that we made out here,” he concluded.