Hasan Mahmud, Bangladesh beat Australia at their own game in Darwin

Those who know Hasan Mahmud well say that he’s an unnatural fast bowler. Not so much in terms of the skills he possesses but more in terms of his personality. A young man so painfully polite that he doesn’t like celebrating his wickets, with the fear that he offends the batter he’s just dismissed. He still of course loves getting them out and thrives on it.

There is a certain reverence that comes through in the way the 26-year-old talks about his fast bowling idols and also the way he acts around them. A few months ago, during his county stint with Kent, he ended up playing against a Lancashire team with James Anderson in the mix. But Hasan couldn’t get himself to walk up and have a word with the English cricket legend who he’d admired greatly since his childhood.

On Thursday morning at the Marrara Oval, as the Lakshmipur-born seamer was about to mark his run-up he spotted Mitchell Starc walking across the pitch to do the same. And he stepped away to make room for the veteran Australian pace dynamo with what seemed like a subconscious show of pure respect. It was a sweet moment, but also indicative of the gratitude the visitors have shown around being invited back to Australian soil for this historic Test tour. To the extent that their captain Najmul Hossain Shanto had spoken about how one of the main missions of the tour for his team was to earn the Australian team’s respect so that they’d no longer wait another 23 years to schedule their next Test tour here. “If we can play competitive cricket, they’ll definitely invite us again in the future,” he’d said.

On Thursday, Shanto and his brave Bangladeshi tigers not only earned the respect of the Aussies, they ended up giving the Australian team a lesson on how to play in their own conditions, with ball and with bat. In turn they ended up garnering the attention of the entire cricket world who stood as one to applaud what was one of the finest Day 1 displays from a visiting team on these shores in a long time.

Yes, we’ve only had one day of cricket so far in this series and there’s every possibility that Australia might fight back into the contest. And there is also the fact that the question marks that the hosts had brought into this series with regards to some of their batters — Marnus Labuschagne and Cameron Green in particular — have only become bolder and more ominous after their latest ordinary dismissals. But those conversations can wait.

Today was all about Bangladesh and their sustained discipline with both bat and ball. In lieu of which they managed to wear Australia down in similar fashion to which Australian teams have done to all comers for generations on home soil. It all started with Hasan and his two pace colleagues, Taskin Ahmed and Ebadot Hossain. Not quite the quickest, and more in the Michael Neser mode, Hasan rarely even hits the mid 130s with any great regularity. But what he does make up for raw pace with is his unerring length control and his natural skiddiness off the surface, which rushes batters into mistakes.

Ebadot, the tall and angular fast bowler, was probably the most threatening bowler of the lot, and really got under the skin of both Head and Smith as they tried to establish themselves. He should have had Smith out on 2 as well if Tanzid Hasan had hung on to a low catch at third slip. And there was the controversial DRS decision where Smith was convinced he had edged a delivery to the wicket-keeper but RTS insisted there was a no spike. But like the other two, Ebadot’s approach was all about slamming the ball on the 6-8 meter length over after over, much like the hall of fame Aussie pace trio do and getting every bit of what was on offer from the surface. He was probably the most consistent at it, but Taskin was the one who produced the best delivery of the lot to dismiss a well-set Alex Carey to really open up the Australian innings. What was even more impressive about the Bangladeshis with the ball was how they continued to thwart any semblance of a fightback over and over again. Even as Smith continued to wage his solo battle before attempting a wild hoick and becoming Hasan’s fifth victim later in the innings.

Their bowlers, if it is possible, were then overshadowed by their top-order as Tanzid and veteran Mominul Haque in particular showed the same level of discipline and fight as their bowlers. The feeling around Marrara after Australia were bowled out for 198 centred around the kind of damage that Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood would be able to pull off on the Bangladeshi batters. Only for the left-handers at the top to thwart them by once again beating them at their own game. Through sheer grit and commitment of the hard graft and grind.

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