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From bad to worse
Wisden CricInfo staff - January 9, 2002
As false dawns go, Bangladesh's first innings in Test cricket was right up there with Ben Hollioake's headline-grabbing England debut in 1997. Against India at Dhaka in 2000-01, Bangladesh batted 153 overs for exactly 400 and for a while even looked like taking a first-innings lead. The match was reminiscent of Zimbabwe's first Test in 1992-93, when they scrapped their way to the dullest of draws with India, laying a base from which they equipped themselves fairly well in their formative Test years.
But for Bangladesh the dam burst in the second innings of their inaugural Test when they were skittled for 91 - only the third time a team had ever been bowled out in double figures by India - and since then they have been blown away time and time again: in 16 further completed innings, including the first of the current match against Pakistan, they have only exceeded 300 twice. And in 18 full Test innings, they've been dismissed for under 200 more than half the time. Since that 400, their average score (based on runs/wickets) is 188.
Here are some of the other statistics that add up to a humbling beginning to life at the top: (including first innings of first Test v Pakistan, Dhaka)
Bangladesh have lost eight of their nine Tests, five by an innings and the other three by comprehensive margins: eight wickets twice, nine wickets once. Their solitary draw, against Zimbabwe at Dhaka, was heavily rain-affected - there was no play on the fourth day and in all only 245 overs were bowled in the match.
In those nine Tests Bangladesh have only bowled sides out on three occasions and have claimed just 74 wickets: that's eight per match. Those 74 wickets include the two only two instances in Test cricket's 1584-match history of batsmen retiring out: Sri Lankans Marvan Atapattu (201) and Mahela Jayawardene (150) did so at the SSC ground in Colombo last September.
Bangladesh have had 18 completed innings - and only four times have they batted for more than 100 overs. If they had won every toss and batted first, they would have been out by tea on the first day on 10 of those 18 occasions.
Though four of their nine matches have gone to the final day and only two have been decided inside three days, in real terms (based on 90 overs a day) Bangladesh have only had two games go into a fifth day, and have been beaten inside three days on five occasions. In the recent series against New Zealand the Tests lased 181.4 and 193 overs respectively - barely scraping into a third day's play.
Against opposition other than Zimbabwe, the average Bangladesh Test has lasted 234 overs - in other words, if all goes to schedule, it finishes before tea on the third day.
The only team to fail to reach 400 in the first innings of a Test against Bangladesh was New Zealand, and they declared twice, on 365 for 9 and 341 for 6.
Bangladesh's average first-innings score (before the current Pakistan Test) is 203; their opponents' is 454 for 8.
Bangladesh have only one batsman with an average above 30: Habibul Bashar, who has made eight fifties and one century in his first 19 innings at an average of 42.16.
The Banglas have lost three out of four Tests to Zimbabwe. Excluding those games, Zimbabwe have won only one and lost 15 of their last 24 Tests.
Bangaladesh's short Test career has included some spectacular collapses: 43-2 to 91 all out, 105-2 to 168, 203-4 to 268, 162-3 to 254, 50-1 to 134, 57-3 to 72-9, 195-1 to 267-9, 204-4 to 251, 90-4 to 108, 81-3 to 132, 62-3 to 86-8 and, today, 140-3 to 160 all out.
Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.
© Wisden CricInfo Ltd
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