Non-existent top-order the only shocking thing!
Bangladesh failed to put up a decent fight against Pakistan in the two-Test series, which concluded yesterday with the hosts' dramatic innings and eight-run defeat at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.
What was more agonising than seeing the Tigers fall to an unfathomable defeat in a Test that had one entire day washed out and only 6.2 overs bowled on another day was how the fragility of Bangladesh's top-order was once brutally exposed again in front of the whole world.
The events that had transpired in the past few days should serve only to amplify pre-existing concerns regarding the country's cricketing future. 48, 19, 34 and 21 were the scores accumulated by the top four batters in the four innings of the two Tests.
On three occasions, Bangladesh's top-order was picked to pieces by the pace threat of Pakistan's Shaheen Shah Afridi and Hasan Ali. Then it was inexperienced off-spinner Sajid Khan who single-handedly dismantled the entire batting line-up.
Closely scrutinising Bangladesh's batting, especially the top-order, would go a long way to showing how the Tigers were never in contention in any of the two Test matches against Pakistan.
While Shaheen and Hasan's pace, swing and bounce dumbfounded the Tigers' and depicted an age-old problem of not being technically solid enough to negotiate quality fast bowling, enabling a three-Test old Sajid to turn into a menace reflected deep flaws in the batters' thought process and approach.
In the second Test, Sajid ended with figures of 12 for 128, his career-best in the format. The off-spinner will probably be excited to tour the country in the future as well given how Bangladesh made his work easier by throwing wickets away in nonsensical manner at a point of a game when patience was the need of the hour.
The only two times that Bangladesh looked to be in control of the matches were when their middle-order clicked. Once when Mushfiqur Rahim and Liton Das instigated a fightback with a 206-run stand in the Chattogram Test and the other was yesterday when Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur, Liton and Mehedi Hasan Miraz compensated with a few decent partnerships after a horrible top-order collapse that forced Bangladesh to follow-on.
To sum it up in a sentence, Bangladesh's top-order was non-existent throughout the series. It was on the two rare occasions that the middle-order had somewhat saved the Tigers' face.
What is concerning is that Bangladesh, without much time to reflect on what went wrong in the Pakistan series, are now headed for a Two-Test series away to New Zealand, a side that the Tigers could never beat in their backyard in any format. They will also be without premier all-rounder Shakib, who had almost salvaged a draw yesterday with his 63-run knock.
However, the most horrifying part is that in the very little time that Bangladesh skipper Mominul Haque probably had to ponder and admit the flaws during the post-match presser, the 30-year-old ended up saying that not only was their batting approach justified but also that any questions regarding it were shocking.