Pakistan cricket’s steep slope continues after the whitewash they have endured against Bangladesh. In the recently released ICC Test rankings, Pakistan have fallen to the eighth spot which is the lowest ranking they have reached since 1965.
“I mean, extremely disappointed, especially when you start the home season, something we’ve all been very excited about. We waited 10 months for this opportunity. The story has been a bit of the same, like, Australia. We haven’t learned our lessons,” Shan Masood said after the series.
“I think now it’s time where we’ve realized that where we thought we were playing good cricket in Australia and not finishing games. That’s something that we need to work on,” he added.
It is also the first time Bangladesh has beaten Pakistan in a Test series. It was an inspirational performance from Bangladesh despite the political tensions and floods in the country.
Bangladesh players have punched above their weight throughout the series. They were reduced to 26/6 in the first innings of the second Test however, Liton Das and Mehidy Hassan stitched a clinical partnership not only to pull Bangladesh back into the game but take them to a victory in the end.
In the first Test too when the team was in a tricky situation veteran batter Mushfiqur Rahim would pull them out of trouble with a sublime double hundred. “However, the Bangladeshi batters made the track look like a road whenever they got the opportunity to bat,” former Pakistan batter Ahmad Shehzad said on his X account.
Not only did their batters outskill the Pakistani batters Bangladesh’s bowlers could extract more out of the palcid Rawalpindi surfaces in both games. Bangladesh’s quartet of fast bowlers picked up 21 wickets during the two-match series while their spinners accounted for 15.
The unsung pace pack out-bowled their Pakistan counterparts as well as their spinners. Bangladesh tweakers mustered 15 wickets, and the seam quartet (including the promising 6-foot-three left-arm seamer Shoriful) plucked 21 at 30.05. Pakistan’s seamers — five of them — eked out only 19 at an average of 39.4.
