Bangladesh vs Australia: From over-cautious batting to negative bowling, making sense of hosts’ meek surrender

Following the sparkling triumph at Mirpur, the Chittagong Test was an anti-climax of sorts for the hosts. After dominating Steve Smith’s boys for the better part of the first match, Bangladesh came to the coastal city eyeing their maiden series win over the mighty Aussies. Expectations were quite high. In fact, many experts considered Bangladesh favourites coming into this series decider with their captain promising to continue the attacking brand of cricket which was on display last week.

However, on the field at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, what we saw was the exact opposite of what was expected from this exciting team. Apart from a few sparks in the middle, it was a complete surrender from Bangladesh’s point of view. Despite losing the crucial toss, the Aussies were all over the hosts, right from the word go and mysteriously, the hosts just let them dominate.

So, what was it? Did the occasion get the better of Mushfiqur Rahim’s team or did the Aussies play some outstanding cricket?

There is no doubt that Nathan Lyon and David Warner probably had their best ever outing in a Test match in the sub-continent, but having followed Bangladesh cricket closely, it seemed as though the hosts succumbed under pressure, which allowed the Australians to implement their game plan in the middle.

Test cricket is all about seizing the moments. Bangladesh did get their chances but unfortunately, they could not make use of those. Following are such moments or phases in the match, where a lack of pro-activeness took the game away from the hosts.

Tentative beginning

In Asian conditions winning the toss and batting first is considered to be a big advantage, especially when you are playing against a team like Australia, who have a dismal record of playing spin. With three specialist spinners in the playing eleven, both the teams were looking to bat first. It was Bangladesh who got that privilege but failed to capitalise.

Compared to the Shere Bangla track, the wicket had offered very little turn, far less bounce and less pace on Day 1. Having been asked to bowl first on a humid morning, Smith gave the new ball to Nathan Lyon probably considering the fact that all the top five Bangladesh batsmen were left-handers. The off-spinner got rid of four of them LBW with identical deliveries — balls which did not spin and went on to hit the pads.

For some strange reason, Bangladesh’s top-order looked extra cautious at the beginning. With eight genuine batsmen in the eleven, one would expect someone like Tamim Iqbal at least to play his natural game to put pressure on Lyon early.

Instead, he, along with the other top-order batters preferred to play the Australian defensively from the crease. This lack of improvisation from the Bangladesh top-order helped the off-spinner to keep on bowling in the corridor of uncertainty and soon the hosts’ batsmen fell into the trap. There was a clear tentativeness in the foot movement of the batsmen and Lyon quite aptly used that fragility to his advantage.

At one point of time in their first innings, Bangladesh were tottering at 117 for 5. From there, Sabbir Rahman’s counter-attacking knock, along with Mushfiqur Rahim’s resilience helped them to reach 305, which on that pitch was 100 to 150 runs short of a safe score.

Negative approach by spinners

Following the below-par effort in the first innings, one would have expected Bangladesh’s spin trio of Shakib Al Hasan, Mehedi Hasan Miraz and Taijul Islam, which took 19 out of 20 Australian wickets at Mirpur, to come out with an aggressive mindset. But instead of going all-out for wickets, for the most part of Australia’s first innings, Bangladeshi spinners were seen bowling negative line and length, which was meant to stop the batsmen from scoring quickly.

Though the wicket was not as helpful as the Mirpur one, the Bangladeshi think-tank should have understood that such negative tactics do not work against the quality batsmen like Smith and David Warner, who along with Peter Handscomb, just kept finding the gaps at regular intervals to strengthen Australia’s position in the Test match.

Missed chances

Close catching has been a problem for Bangladesh for some time now and they missed quite a few in this Test match too. Warner got two respites during his knock of 123. First, Mominul Haque dropped a relatively easy chance at short-leg and later Mushfiqur missed a stumping opportunity. Bangladesh would have liked to see his departure early. In fact, after the wicket of Warner, the bowlers got rid of rest of the batting quite cheaply to restrict the lead to just 72.

Lack of maturity in dealing with challenging situations

If Bangladesh’s first innings batting performance was below-par than their second innings was arguably their worst effort in recent past in Test cricket. There was no intention to rectify the mistakes made in the first innings. The effort lacked application, determination and planning.

Bangladesh just needed their batsmen to show controlled aggression. A steady effort in the second innings would have secured the match and the series for Bangladesh. Yes, the wicket was deteriorating, but if you want to win a Test series against Australia, you need to battle through these tough periods. But as feared by many, their entire batting line-up could not deliver when it mattered. Probably because of the lack of exposure to similar situations before, their batsmen lacked the maturity to deal with it. Also, the inexplicable tactic of asking Mominul, someone who has a batting average of 46 in Tests, to bat at No 8, did not help their cause either.

Their second innings lasted for just 71.2 overs, in which they could only manage 157, giving the Aussies a target of 86 in the fourth innings. It was a mere formality from that point.

For a team like Bangladesh which, after a long wait, have finally started to show glimpses of consistency in the past few years, a third drawn series against higher-ranked opponents (England, Sri Lanka and now Australia) within the past 12 months is itself a commendable effort. This a learning curve for this developing side and the team management has surely identified areas where there is a scope for improvement.

Bangladesh’s next Test assignment will be in South Africa later this month, which will be another stiff challenge for these boys. No one expects them to win a Test match over there, but if they try to learn from their mistakes and avoid repeating those, who knows, they might have a competitive outing in the rainbow nation as well.