With Liton Das’s imperious ton at Christchurch, his second in career, Bangladesh ended the New Zealand series with a draw 1-1 on Tuesday. Despite his century, Bangladesh lost the second Test in Christchurch by an innings and 117 runs within the third day of the match.
It has been Bangladesh’s best Test result against New Zealand so far. Before this series, Bangladesh played a total of 32 international matches in New Zealand but failed to win any of them. But in the first Test, Bangladesh managed to beat the Kiwis by eight wickets and created history.
“It was a dream to win a Test abroad against a big team,” Mominul Haque, Bangladesh captain told after the match. “It was so important for us to register the first win. We will also win series abroad in future. We now have that important belief. It was the biggest positive side of this series. But we have many things to do.”
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Bangladesh, however, failed to continue on a good run in the second Test when they had to endure a defeat by an innings and 117 runs.
In the first innings of the match, New Zealand had posted a massive total of 521 for six and declared the innings. Tom Latham, the New Zealand captain hit a double-ton while Devon Conway registered this second century of the series as well.
In reply, Bangladesh tumbled for 126 in the first innings with the highest score of 55 by Yasir Ali who was playing only his third Test. Trent Boult bagged five wickets for the hosts— his ninth five-fors in Tests so far.
“It was disappointing that we failed to bat well in the first innings of the second Test,” Mominul said. “Our bowling in this match was also below our standard. Shohan (Nurul Haque), and Yasir (Ali) did well in the first innings, and in the second innings, Liton was outstanding.”
The hosts enforced a follow on, and in the second innings, Bangladesh ended up on 278 all out. They came up with a better response, but it was too late from the Bangladeshi batters.
Liton came to bat at five and posted 102 for 114 balls— his second ton in Test career. His first Test hundred came against Pakistan in the previous series at home— which was Bangladesh’s first series in the new cycle of the World Test Championship.
The second Test of the series was the last Test of New Zealand legend Ross Taylor. The batter ended up his red-ball journey with the wicket of Ebadot Hossain. Latham took a great catch to remove Ebadot, and in his last ball of the career, Taylor got his farewell gift from Ebadot.
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While leaving the field for the final time, Taylor got applauded by his teammates, opposition, and the crowd.
Taylor ended his Test career as one of the best batters that New Zealand has ever produced. He helped the Blackcaps won the last year’s World Test Championship final against India. He saw many ups in his career with little downs.
Bangladesh team will now travel back home and start preparing for the upcoming edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), which is set to begin on January 21 in Dhaka. This year BPL is scheduled to be played at three venues in Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet. However, the official schedule is yet to be revealed.