After they were left in clear dismay, absolutely clueless and perhaps even shattered - if that’s the right word- in the first and opening test of the recent series at Darwin, Australia’s tormentors, Bangladesh realised that it wasn’t quite the thing to repeat the heroical show at the Great Barrier Reef Arena, South Mackay. As a matter of fact, it were the Australians who totally returned the favour on Bangladesh making the just completed test match a blink and you miss appearance for fans given just how quickly the entire Test match wrapped up.
As a support act, you the fan could simply laud the courage of the visiting side’s batters attempting to knock off some runs off Australian bowlers where on the MacKay pitch that appeared the hardest thing to do.
So difficult and so real hard that to put bat to ball especially against Starc, someone blowing seven kinds of fire- given the dangerous sort of form he was in- was something you’d have ideally left to the world’s best batters such as Joe Root, perhaps.
On a seemingly difficult wicket to bat on, let alone score handsomely or in huge numbers, the Bangladeshi batters did really come for a cold real test as a battle for attrition wore on at the Great Barrier Reef venue. Australia were back in the position of absolute ascendency, Mitch Starc taking the lion’s share of wickets and also putting the nature of the pitch into focus as the batters hugely struggled to collect runs given they simply didn’t seem to be available.
And post the match there appeared doubts on whether the pitch was in fact of international cricket standards. But to that, we’ve now got an answer even if that means having a good one in just one and a half days of playing Test match cricket.
And for that, one needs to note the following:
Very good' is the highest possible grading out of four, defined as 'good carry, limited seam movement, and consistent bounce early in the match, allowing for a balanced contest between batters and bowlers'.
