Australia’s top order struggles again and uncharacteristic fielding mishaps deepen their mire as Bangladesh dare to dream
Australia’s middle order and bowlers will need to dig as deep as they ever have to avoid one of Test cricket’s greatest upsets after Bangladesh entrenched an advantage earnt through more honest graft in the Darwin furnace.
Josh Hazlewood (6-89) becoming Australia’s ninth bowler to 300 Test wickets was overshadowed by the Tigers maintaining their extraordinary and unforeseen hold over their hosts on day three. By stumps, the unfancied visitors had dismissed their weary opposition’s entire top four after seizing a 228-run first-innings lead.
While the under-fire Cameron Green (43no off 86) and Alex Carey (19 off 48) reduced the deficit to 67 as the Aussies stumbled to 4-161 at the close at Marrara Stadium, the loss of star bats Travis Head (17) and Steve Smith (44) relatively cheaply has left their team teetering in their third-innings reply.
It capped after a rough day for both Smith and Head after clanging catches within minutes of each other to take Australia’s innings total of drops to five, allowing Bangladesh to rack up 426 and keep the home side in the field for 138 overs.
Not since the 1992 Colombo Test when Shane Warne and Greg Matthews spun Allan Border’s side to a miraculous revival from a 291-run deficit have Australia overcome a first-innings handicap as large as the one they have handed to Bangladesh here. Overall, it would be their third biggest comeback in almost 150 years of Test history.
Mehidy Hasan Miraz joined the swelling list of unlikely Bangladesh heroes on Saturday as he snared the coveted scalp of Smith with a smart caught-and-bowled, the allrounder having earlier helped add 118 for the final four wickets with a determined 154-ball 65.
Tail-enders Hasan Mahmud (14 off 92), Taijul Islam (17 off 23) and Taskin Ahmed (14no from 32) all ensured Bangladesh held on grimly through the morning and early afternoon, with Hasan’s tremendous Test continuing as he dismissed both Australia openers to take his match wicket haul to eight.
Green fought on desperately in the fading light, hitting just two boundaries in 86 balls faced, with his only real error coming when an inside-edge off Taskin shaved his left-stump but failed to disturb the bails.
Signs of Australia’s fatigue after their long stint in the Top End oven showed as Jake Weatherald chopped on for a third-ball duck in Hasan’s first over, while Travis Head left in virtually identical fashion.
While Head has cultivated his reputation as a throwback cricketer, only he will be able to explain his thought process as he channelled WG Grace by gently placing the bails one-by-one back on top of the stumps after they were removed.
A skittish Marnus Labuschagne (31 off 59) settled after twice being struck on the pads inside his first dozen balls, but his puzzling run of form maintained as he inexplicably missed a full Taijul offering that floated against the mid-afternoon breeze and past his defences.
Smith’s dismay at the manner of Labuschagne’s exit was understandable – until Australia’s No.4 surrendered even more meekly when he punched a return catch to Bangladesh’s other finger spinner, Mehidy.
So in control had Smith seemed that he reviewed a caught-behind in which he hit the ground before Kumar Dharmasena had even given him out. His exit surely surprised Bangladesh as much as it clearly delighted them.
A Cummins lifter that flew past Hasan’s outside edge during the day’s opening over aside, Australia seldom found any help from an increasingly placcid surface that allowed the determined tourists to dig in.
Nor were they assisted by the shelling of two sky balls in the same Cummins over: the first, off Taskin, came the ball after the skipper placed Smith at deep backward square, the second seeing Head stick a solitary hand out as he ran full gallop from mid-on.
Hazlewood eventually held the ball aloft in the mid-afternoon glare when Mehidy succumbed in the first over after lunch, the towering quick adding a sixth to seal his best Test figures in close to a decade.
NRMA Insurance Bangladesh Test series
First Test: August 13-17, Marrara Stadium, Darwin, 10am (local)
Second Test: August 22-26, Great Barrier Reef Arena, Mackay, 10am (local)
Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster
Bangladesh squad (first Test): Najmul Hossain Shanto (c), Mehidy Hasan Miraz (vc), Soumya Sarkar, Shadman Islam, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim, Litton Das, Amite Hasan, Jaker Ali, Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, Syed Khaled Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain Chowdhury, Musfik Hasan
