Bangladesh exchanged spots with the West Indies on the World Test Championship (WTC) table as the visitors finally got out of the rut of five defeats in the formats in a row. Bangladesh registered its first Test win in the West Indies in 15 years as the visitors lifted themselves from the bottom of the points table to the eighth spot and levelled the two-match series 1-1 riding on performances from Nahid Rana, Jaker Ali and Taijul Islam across the game.
The 2-0 series win against Pakistan started looking like an outlier more and more as Bangladesh lost back-to-back series against India (away) and South Africa (home) and even the series opener against the West Indies. After being bowled out for 164 in the first innings, another 2-0 series defeat started looking like a possibility before Rana provided the first moment of Bangladesh staging a comeback by running through the Windies’ line-up in the first innings.
Apart from the top three, the whole batting line-up registered single-digit scores for the West Indies as Rana with a five-wicket haul propelled Bangladesh to a slim 18-run lead. Having been bowled out for 164 themselves, Bangladesh would have taken it any day.
Then came the fightback with the bat for the visitors led by Jaker Ali and captain Mehidy Hasan’s counter-attacking knocks. Jaker missed a well-deserved ton by just nine runs but helped Bangladesh post a 287-run target for the West Indies, which was always going to be difficult.
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The left-arm spinner Taijul Islam flexed his muscles and some as apart from Kavem Hodge, no other batter could offer much resistance. Skipper Kraigg Brathwaite and Hodge seemed to be taking the West Indies to safer shores after losing a couple of early wickets. However, once their partnership was broken, the damn opened and the West Indies went from 143/4 to 185 all-out.
This was also only the third Test win for Bangladesh in the West Indies and with the help of that win, their PCT jumped up to 31.25 while West Indies suffered their seventh loss in the current WTC cycle.
