Bangladesh in World Test Championship
Bangladesh had a forgettable outing in the inaugural cycle of the World Test Championship. They finished right at the bottom of the table with only 4.8 percentage of the total points available. The Tigers failed to win any of the seven matches they played during the cycle. While they lost six games, they did manage to save one Test match.
The Bangla Tigers lost a one-off Test match against Pakistan and two series against India and West Indies. However, they did manage to draw the series against Sri Lanka. They saved the very first match of the series against the Lankan Lions but succumbed to a 209-run loss in the second match.
Who Holds Bangladesh World Test Championship Records?
Bangladesh didn’t enjoy a good outing as a team in the 2019-21 WTC cycle but they had plenty of eye-catching individual performances to talk about. Mominul Haque finished as Bangladesh’s highest run-scorer in that cycle with 534 runs to his name at an average of 41.07.
He scored two hundreds, including a best score of 127. There were three other players — Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim and Liton Das — who crossed the 400-run mark as well.
As far as the bowling records go, Taijul Islam was their highest wicket-taker with 23 wickets to his name in seven matches. His 8/144 against West Indies was the best figures registered by a Bangladeshi bowler in that WTC cycle.
Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Abu Jayed were joint second in the list of most wickets taken by Bangladeshi bowlers. The duo picked up 15 wickets each after playing the same number of matches.
How is Bangladesh Performing in World Test Championship?
Bangladesh haven’t made any drastic improvement from their performance in the last WTC cycle but they registered their historic first Test victory in New Zealand at the beginning of this cycle.
The Tigers registered a monumental eight-wicket win against the Kiwis in the first Test match of the series, riding on their pacer Ebadot Hossain’s superb bowling effort. Hossain registered figures of 6/46 in the third innings to skittle the Kiwis out for a total of 169. That left Bangladesh with an easy task of scoring 40 runs to win and they did that quite easily.
Before Hossain, the victory was set up by a fine effort from the Bangladeshi batters. Each of Mahmudul Hasan Joy, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Mominul Haque and Liton Das scored fifties to give the visitors a massive 130-run lead.
However, Bangladesh haven’t been able to achieve anything special after that. They have lost three and drawn one match since then. Overall, they have played seven matches in this WTC cycle, winning one, losing six and drawing once as well. Talking about the individual performances,
Liton Das is leading the scoring charts with 589 runs at an excellent average of 49.08. Taijul Islam is the highest wicket-taker with 24 wickets to his name at an average of 27.87. The Tigers have some more matches to go in this cycle and they will be eager to register at least a couple of wins more to show that their win in New Zealand wasn’t a fluke.
