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 the Test ranks in 2000, Cricket Australia has treated a cricket populace of well over 100 million people with the most blatant condescension.
Six Tests before this series, and only two of those in Australia, in 26 years. A cancelled Test visit in 2015 on spurious security grounds, another during the pandemic that was unavoidable but was never rescheduled, and between those a rescinded invitation to tour Australia in 2018, CA forgoing excuses and admitting they just didn’t want to pay the hosting bill. Meanwhile, white-ball meetings have largely been confined to those unavoidable at World Cups: the bilateral count is 15 matches in one-day cricket and eight in T20s, less than one per year on average.
Teams do not simply walk into Australia and win Test matches. Teams from Asia particularly. Sri Lanka, winner of two World Cups, have never done it.
Pakistan haven’t in the last 31 years, and all up have four wins from 40 attempts. India found a repeatable method in the last eight years, but won five in 46 matches before that. In this context, take the most junior of the principal four Asian nations, a country that has nine away Test wins in its entire history.
Take a group of players who have – three survivors from the 2015 World Cup squad aside – never faced or bowled an international delivery in Australia. Put that team in a warm-up match against a CA emerging talent XI where they get bowled out for 54 by a kid with one first-class match to his name. And try to figure how this side then fronted up against four bowlers with more than 1,600 Test wickets, and a top seven with 66 centuries and more than 25,000 runs, and didn’t just win, but turned out a Mortal Kombat flawless victory in which they did not lose a single session across the full four days.
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