Picture Credit: Twitter
It has been a great few weeks for Pakistan captain Babar Azam. While at an individual level, he has scored runs in T20Is as well as Test matches, even as a leader he has been impressive, taking the Men in Green to the semifinals of the T20 World Cup as well as now completing 2-0 Test series win over Bangladesh after having already beaten the Bangla Tigers 3-0 in the T20I series.
However, the second Test victory over Bangladesh will taste sweeter. This is because for the most part of the Test, it kept raining and there were very little chances of a result in the Test at Dhaka. Yet Pakistan looked for a result and produced that in the dying stages of the match on Day 5.
Pakistan went in for an early declaration to push for a result after scoring 300 runs for the loss of 4 wickets. However, their job was only half done as they needed to bowl Bangladesh out for a low score to have any hopes of getting a result which is exactly what they did with the wrecker-in-chief, as far as the Pakistan's bowling attack is concerned, being Sajid Khan who scalped 8/42 in the first innings, picking 6 alone on Day 4.
Thanks to his performance, Bangladesh were bowled out for 87 in the first innings and Pakistan had little doubts of enforcing a follow-on with over two sessions remaining in the final day. Although the visitors managed to take 4 wickets early again in the second innings, there were a couple of partnerships in the middle and even when the two partnerships were broken Shakib Al Hasan along with Mehidy Hasan was putting up a resilient show with time running out for Pakistan.
In a desperate attempt to take a wicket, Babar brought himself on and was immediately rewarded in the second ball of the 76th over as he dismissed Mehidy through a DRS. The ball was in line and was going on to hit the stumps as the replays confirmed and the umpire had to reverse the decision of the on-field umpire as Bangladesh lost their seventh wicket. This was the master batter's maiden wicket in international cricket as he brought an end to a 51-run stand for the seventh wicket which had consumed 139 deliveries.
Here is the video of the incident:
The dismissal of Mehidy turned the match on its head as it was quickly followed by other wickets and in no time, Pakistan bagged the match with an innings and 8 runs to complete a clean sweep even in the Test matches. Earlier Pakistan had won the first Test by 8 wickets.