{"id":865247,"date":"2026-08-23T06:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T06:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/865247\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T06:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T06:52:15","slug":"australia-vs-bangladesh-quick-hits-shoriful-islams-ball-of-the-series-more-mitchell-starc-carnage-in-the-29th-two-day-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/865247\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia vs Bangladesh quick hits: Shoriful Islam’s ball of the series, more Mitchell Starc carnage in the 29th two-day Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mitchell Starc delivers once more but it’s another left-arm seamer who delivers the ball of the series, as Test cricket is blessed with its 29th two-day match.<\/p>\n

As it happened: Australia wraps up two-day victory in Mackay<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are the quick hits from day two of the second Test between Australia and Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

1. Shoriful’s ball of the series\"Cameron<\/p>\n

Cameron Green was felled by a brutal inswinging yorker. (Getty Images: Cricket Australia\/Albert Perez)<\/p>\n

It wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to determine that Cam Green held the key for Australia at the start of day two.<\/p>\n

The towering all-rounder, buoyed by his drought-breaking ton in Darwin, was once again looking precisely the player he had for so long promised to be.<\/p>\n

With Green well set on 67 and clattering boundaries to either side of the wicket, it was going to take something special to remove the big man.<\/p>\n

And Shoriful Islam, having already ripped through Australia’s middle order late on day two, delivered something very, very special.<\/p>\n

The left-armer’s pinpoint yorker swung in late and dramatically, with Green falling over himself in a futile attempt to keep it out.<\/p>\n

The ball thudded into the Australian’s big toe on its way past the stumps and, after a brief consultation with DRS, was given out LBW to what was surely the ball of the series.<\/p>\n

And that wasn’t the end of the story for left-arm seamers on day two \u2026<\/p>\n

2. Starc continues the left-arm carnage\"Two<\/p>\n

Mitchell Starc picked up from where he left off in the second innings. (Getty Images: Albert Perez\/Cricket Australia)<\/p>\n

Shoriful, who was almost inconceivably yanked from the bowling attack after that stunner against Green, ended the innings with figures of 7-48, the best-ever return for a Bangladeshi bowler while playing away from home.<\/p>\n

Combine that with the 6-12 Mitchell Starc plundered early on day one, and left-arm seam had returned overall figures of 13-60, while accounting for 13 of the 20 wickets to fall in the match.<\/p>\n

And it wasn’t long before those numbers were improved even further.<\/p>\n

He couldn’t manage a wicket in his first set, but Starc struck with his eighth delivery of the innings, extracting some extra bounce to have Shadman Islam caught off a leading edge at point.<\/p>\n

And the very next ball, Starc had his eighth of the match, having kissed the top of Mominul Haque’s off stump with the Bangladeshi attempting an ill-advised leave.<\/p>\n

An almost-customary double strike from Australia’s supreme new-ball destroyer.<\/p>\n

Starc eventually finished with figures of 4-39 for the innings and, with 10-51, the second-best match figures of his career.<\/p>\n

3. Smith takes a screamer after tea<\/p>\n

Tailender Taskin Ahmed had set himself well in the lead-up to the tea break, but he fell at the very first hurdle in the evening session.<\/p>\n

Lyon’s first delivery was a beauty, pitching and turning away from the leftie, who swung hard and found a healthy outside edge.<\/p>\n

And Steve Smith, in place at his familiar position at slip, had to have his wits about him to complete a very good one-handed grab.<\/p>\n

He’s Test cricket’s most prolific catcher for a reason, after all.<\/p>\n

Taskin, who had provided perhaps Bangladesh’s brightest spot in an otherwise pitch-black innings in swatting a massive six over long on in the shadows of tea, was out for 7.<\/p>\n

4. The shortest session ever?<\/p>\n

With Shoriful in at No. 11, the end was very clearly nigh in Mackay.<\/p>\n

However, Shoriful showed in the first innings that he had at least some ability with the bat, top scoring with a rather frenetic 14 from 19 deliveries.<\/p>\n

He survived the first ball of his second dig, defending Lyon out into the off side.<\/p>\n

But it was all over with the very next ball.<\/p>\n

Shoriful had a big swing at one, caught a thick outside edge and ballooned a dolly out to Starc at point, with Australia’s superlative spearhead fittingly bringing the match to an end.<\/p>\n

With two wickets falling in just three balls, it had to be close to the shortest non-weather-affected session in Test history.<\/p>\n

5. The 29th two-day Test\"A<\/p>\n

Australia cruised to victory within two days. (Getty Images: Albert Perez\/Cricket Australia)<\/p>\n

There have been 2,632 Test matches played in cricket’s lengthy red-ball history, with 457 of them held in Australia.<\/p>\n

As of today, there have been just 29 finish inside two days.<\/p>\n

Only five of those have happened in Australia.<\/p>\n

And yet, in the last 20 Tests that have been played on these shores, it has happened four times.<\/p>\n

Australia thumped South Africa on a Gabba green top in 2022, and then there were two, two-day Tests during last summer’s Ashes, one in Perth and the other at the MCG.<\/p>\n

The only Australia-hosted Test to finish inside two days before that game in Brisbane four years ago took place in Melbourne against the West Indies, in February 1931.<\/p>\n

Eleven of the two-day Tests in history took place before World War I (between 1882 and 1912), a further three either side of World War II (1931-1946) but then none between 1946 and 1999.<\/p>\n

Then, since 2000, there have been 13 two-day Tests. The cost of a fast-paced world, perhaps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitchell Starc delivers once more but it’s another left-arm seamer who delivers the ball of the series, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[5844,64,63,422588,434025,13047,740,184337,31024,29547,73708,18978,416652,85,35235,1211],"class_list":["post-865247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-abc-sport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-vs-bangladesh","tag-australia-wins","tag-bangladesh","tag-cricket","tag-day-two","tag-mitchell-starc","tag-nathan-lyon","tag-quick-hits","tag-second-test","tag-shoriful-islam","tag-sports","tag-steve-smith","tag-test-cricket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}