Rawalpindi. Bangladesh defeated Pakistan by six wickets on Tuesday in the second and final cricket test and registered a historic victory by 2-0. Bangladesh needed 143 runs on the last day and had ten wickets in hand. Bangladesh achieved the target by losing four wickets and the winning four was hit by Shakib Al Hasan. This is only the second time Bangladesh has won a bilateral test series on foreign soil in which two or more tests have been played. Earlier, it had registered victory in the West Indies in 2009.
Bangladesh won the first Test by ten wickets and the second Test in four days as the first day was washed out due to rain. Bangladesh captain Nazmul Hussain Shanto said after this historic victory, “It means a lot… We are really happy.” He said, “Every player contributed in this series, it was a complete team effort. I hope this kind of performance will continue in the future.” Before this series, Bangladesh had lost 12 of its last 13 Tests against Pakistan, while the team managed to draw one match at home in 2015.
Shanto said that the team was confident of success on this tour, “We were thinking about victory before coming here. We are happy with the way every player contributed.” Bangladesh lost six wickets for 26 runs in the first innings of this Test match, but Liton Das scored 138 and Mehdi Hasan Miraz scored 78 runs to take the team to 262 runs, which was only 12 runs less than Pakistan’s first innings.
After this, young fast bowlers like Hasan Mahmud (five wickets) and Nahid Rana (four wickets) shared nine wickets among themselves and bundled out Pakistan’s second innings for 172 runs. Experienced Taskin Ahmed also took one wicket. Bangladesh got a target of scoring 185 runs in four sessions to win and the team achieved it easily. Shakib remained unbeaten on 21 and Mushfiqur Rahim on 22.
For Bangladesh, openers Zakir Hasan (40), captain Shanto (38) and Mominul Haque (34) played useful knocks.
Pakistan has not won even one of the ten Tests in the last two and a half years on its soil. The last time it defeated South Africa was in December 2021 in Rawalpindi itself. This had happened only once before, when Pakistan lost 11 consecutive matches at home from 1969-75. Shan Masood is the first Pakistan captain to lose his first five Tests.
He said after the match, “Very disappointing, that too when you play the series on home ground.” He said, “The story of this series was also similar to the series against Australia (0-3 loss). We did not learn from our mistakes.” Pakistan now has to host England for a three-match series.