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Cricket fans in Pakistan may never have thought of hearing this news in their lifetime, but today Pakistan has been defeated by Bangladesh at home ground for the first time in history in Test cricket.
On a pitch that Pakistani bowlers thought was neither suitable for fast bowlers nor spinners, Bangladesh’s young bowling line-up piled up the Pakistani batting for 146 runs.
During the first four days of the first Test played in Rawalpindi, the talk was only about the flat pitch where Pakistan’s Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan managed to score big centuries while Bangladesh’s Mushfiqur Rahim played a brilliant innings of 191 runs.
However, at the beginning of the fifth day, no one had any illusions that the Bangladeshi team would be celebrating the victory even before the tea break today.
It has been a story of decline in Pakistani cricket over the last one year, in which Pakistan has been knocked out in the first rounds of Asia Cup, World Cup and T20 World Cup, but also in Test cricket one after the other. There have also been defeats in home Test series and international tours.
Perhaps the criticism made by Pakistan regarding the pitch in this Test match was excessive and on the contrary, the Bangladesh bowlers bowled carefully and disciplined, while the Pakistani bowlers did not appear to be in rhythm. And neither came into the field with a plan.
The same mistake was seen today by the Pakistani batsmen who apparently did not understand whether to take an aggressive approach or play defensively to lead the match to a draw.
This ambiguity was taken advantage of by the Bangladesh spinners who, on a pitch where, according to Naseem Shah, ‘the pitch is neither fast bowlers nor spinners’, showed the way to Pakistan’s seven batsmen.
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Several Pakistan batsmen were dismissed playing very irresponsible strokes and could not bat on the pitch. Saeem Ayub returned to the pavilion after scoring a run only yesterday, but captain Shan Masood caught the wicketkeeper in the first hour today.
A good partnership was forming between Babar Azam and Abdullah Shafiq, but Babar too was bowled trying to play a cover drive, scoring only 21 runs.
When Saud Shakeel, who scored a century in the first innings, was stumped for zero in the second innings, the Pakistani batting situation seemed to be getting worse and here again, Muhammad Rizwan’s half-century supported the Pakistani batting and saved the innings from defeat. But they also finally returned to the pavilion after scoring 51 runs and then the tail-enders also could not add enough to the score.
Bangladesh needed 30 runs to win which they managed in just seven overs to defeat Pakistan by ten wickets.
Bangladesh’s experienced wicketkeeper-batsman Mushfiqur Rahim was declared the man of the match for scoring 191 runs in the first innings.
Mushfiqur Rahim announced that he is donating his prize money to flood victims in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh captain Najamul Hasan Shanto was delighted with his team’s performance and said, “Before this series started, we thought we would win this time.”
He praised veteran batsman Mushfiqur Rahim and said that he has been carrying out this responsibility for Bangladesh for years.
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‘Bangladesh did not let the upheaval in the country, the case against the player ride on itself’
While the cricket watchers are criticizing the poor performance of the Pakistani team, they are also praising the Bangladesh team.
Ajmal Jami writes: ‘The country is in turmoil, a key player of the Bangladesh team is named in the case, yet the team has not brought him to his senses.’
He further says that ‘he is seeing significant cracks in the Pakistani cricket team.’
image sourceX/syedaliimran
From the first day of the Test match, many people were seen saying that the Rawalpindi Cricket Ground’s pitch was poor, but as soon as Bangladesh’s load became heavier in the match, the opinion of the users also changed.
An X user named Syed Ali Imran wrote that in the end, there is no fault of the pitch but it is a matter of the skills and quality of our players.
image sourceX/ajmaljami
Pakistan team was playing this match without a spin bowler. Users also say that Pakistan lost this test match due to wrong selection.
“Dropped a talented spinner like Abrar and it proved disastrous as the Bangladeshi spinners took nine wickets out of 16 in the match,” wrote an X user.
