A helpless surrender in the final afternoon
Photo: Agamir Somoy
When the ball that brushed Brendan King's bat crossed the boundary rope, that moment was really like switching off the life support of a patient in the ICU. That Bangladesh were losing the Dhaka Test had been certain long before. All that remained was formality and the funeral. That too happened. With many explanations and excuses. Captain Nazmul Hossain Shanto said at the press conference that batting and bowling did not go well. When the result of a Test match is an 8-wicket defeat on the fourth day, there is no need to separately say what else went wrong.
On the same 22 yards where 11 wickets fell on the second day and 12 wickets on the third day, West Indies batted effortlessly in the final session of the fourth day. They chased 170 runs with ease. The spinners did not get a single wicket. Brendan King played a superb innings of 81* off 115 balls. He stepped out against the spinners, hit 10 boundaries and one six. When Shariful Islam dismissed John Campbell, who was one run short of a half-century, the match had long slipped out of Bangladesh's hands.
Yet hope stirred in the gallery. After just 8 more runs were added to the team total, Hasan Mahmud dismissed Tagenarine Chanderpaul. West Indies needed 50 runs, Bangladesh needed 8 wickets. 8 magical deliveries. But those 8 deliveries did not come in the next 60 deliveries. West Indies won the Dhaka Test at 35.1 overs scoring 170 runs, having trailed by 27 runs in the first innings.
The bowlers most commonly seen in Bangladesh's domestic cricket are left-arm spinners. West Indies' left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican took 9 wickets across two innings and shattered Bangladesh's batting. When you dig a hole for others, you end up falling into it yourself — this is perhaps the biggest lesson of the Dhaka Test.
