The long wait however, will soon be over as Australia reached Dhaka on Friday night for the two-match Test series, a series initially scheduled for 2011. The first Test gets underway in Mirpur on Sunday. What has drastically changed in these 11 long years is Bangladesh progressing in the format, making one mark after another.Lovely start Bangladesh. Macaroons, how did you know! #bangladesh #cricket #australia #dhaka
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The Tigers’ most talked about win in recent times came when they last played a Test in Mirpur’s Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, against England in 2016. As a result, the Tigers levelled the two-match series 1-1. Host Bangladesh will be keen to stick to the routine against Australia, kicking off from the same venue. As for the visiting side, the Aussies have struggled whenever they travelled to the sub-continent for Test series, winning only two matches in their six visits to Asia in the last 10 years. Their most recent win came against India in February this year.
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The Aussies started the four-match series against the Indians with a win, only to end the series with a 2-1 defeat. The other Test concluded in a draw. Such facts have only made the Bangladesh-Australia Test affair interesting and tourist captain Smith understands well their three-week long stay here will be challenging. “It will be a challenging series. Bangladesh have played some brilliant cricket here. They beat England in a Test match here not too long ago. We are going to see it as a bit of a challenge. Hopefully we can come with the thing we learned from India and bring that into the game here,” said Smith in his on-arrival press conference at the SBNS on Saturday.
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“They have played some very good cricket here off late. Conditions are always foreign to us when we are in the sub-continent. The wickets are always not what we get at home. I hope we can learn from the last Test series in India. I expect we will come up to some pretty similar wickets, similar amount of spin. Hopefully we can learn from what we did there (in India),” the all-rounder added. In comparison to India and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh are still a weak proposition more often than not, despite playing at home. Smith informed that they will be looking to take advantage of that and improve their graph in the sub-continent. “Now it is an opportunity for us to change that. I thought we did some things really well in India. We just needed to do it for a little bit longer, and consistently. This is another opportunity to showcase our skills, show what we learned over there and hopefully give our best foot forward," said Smith.
