Category: Cricket

The quick-fire series in the Northern Territory did little to answer batting line-up questions and the top of the order remains an almighty jumble

Cricket Australia didn’t host a Bangladesh Test for 23 years for a simple reason: it would have cost money to stage and earned less money back. That wouldn’t have been a concern for whichever generation of players would have taken the field, but for the suits, the equation was lose-lose. Now that the mandate of the World Test Championship has forced administrators to end that long wait, the result for Australia’s current batting outfit was also been lose-lose, even if the series scoreline ended up lose-win.

Defeat in the Darwin Test will remain a punchline at Australia’s expense, especially if the upcoming cavalcade of cricket against South Africa, New Zealand, India and England goes poorly. The follow-up win in Mackay, no matter the ruthlessness of concluding it in five sessions, won’t provide corresponding solace, given the manner in which it was built.

• Australia 210; Bangladesh 64 & 95

• Starc stars with 10 wickets in Mackay

Mitchell Starc has rocked the Bangladesh batting order for the second time in as many days in Mackay to secure Australia victory by an innings and 51 runs in the second Test.

For the third time in the last seven matches, a Test in Australia has finished inside two days after Starc and captain Pat Cummins (3-10) ripped through Bangladesh, who batted poorly.

• Second Test, day one: Bangladesh 64; Australia 165-8 in Mackay

• Fast bowler takes five wickets before lunch and finishes with 6 for 12

Australia’s top-order batting woes continued after Mitchell Starc’s six-wicket blitz as Bangladesh fought back on an extraordinary opening day of the second Test in Mackay.

Bangladesh’s own left-arm speedster Shoriful Islam, who had recovered from a side strain that kept him out of the first Test, cut a swathe through Australia’s batting to claim 6 for 35 off 11 lethal overs in his best-ever return in an innings.

• Former Test opener fined $1,500 after failing a breath-test at Easter

• Future work opportunities will be affected, says barrister

Australian cricket great David Warner has lamented global media attention about his drink-driving offence, suggesting it cost him valuable overseas commercial opportunities.

The 39-year-old was convicted and fined $1,500 on Tuesday for mid-range drink-driving after he tried to switch seats with a passenger when approaching a random breath-testing site on Easter Sunday.

• Opener pays price after scores of 23 and 0 in first Test defeat

• Matthew Renshaw drafted into 13-man squad in his place

Jake Weatherald has paid the price for an underwhelming performance in Australia’s shock Test defeat to Bangladesh, with Matthew Renshaw drafted into a 13-man squad to replace the opener for the second and final match of the series starting on Saturday.

Weatherald went into the first Test in his home town of Darwin with a question mark over his place in the side, having largely failed to make an impact since coming into the Test set-up as a late-blooming debutant at the start of the 2025-26 Ashes series.

Despite overwhelming odds against them, Bangladesh still found a way to win – but their success wasn’t down to any Australian complacency

Sport coverage is powered by hyperbole and recency bias, but the following statement is justifiable: Bangladesh’s defeat of Australia in Darwin is the most profound upset, the greatest revolt against the pre-game odds, in international cricket history. Australia’s win in England in 1882 so shocked locals that they published a cremation-themed obituary, but the same result had already happened four times on the other side of the world. Zimbabwe stunned India in 1998, but that was at least in the underdogs’ home conditions.

India’s bench-depth win at the Gabba in 2021 has a claim, or the new nation of Pakistan winning either in India in 1952 or England in 1954. But in truth, Sunday’s result is now the title holder, not just because of the disparity between the resources and histories of the two teams, not just because of the location, but because of the manufactured rarity of this match-up even taking place. Since Bangladesh’s admission to Test ranks in 2000, Cricket Australia have treated a cricket populace of well over 100 million people with the most blatant condescension.