Bangladesh in Test Cricket

Origins and the long first decade

Bangladesh joined Test cricket on 10 November 2000, losing to India at Dhaka by nine wickets after Aminul Islam had made 145 on debut. It was another four years and 34 Tests before the first win, a 226-run home win over Zimbabwe in January 2005. The 2000s decade line reads 61 matches, 3 wins, 52 losses.

Finding wins at home

The 2010s were the first period Bangladesh registered wins routinely. The 2014 home series against Zimbabwe produced the longest winning streak in the record (three Tests), and 2016-19 saw home series against England (1-1 draw, but a series in doubt), Australia (1-1 draw, first-ever win over Australia), and West Indies (a 2-0 sweep). The 2010s Test decade reads 56 matches, 10 wins, 36 losses - a modest number but three times the win rate of the previous decade.

The 2020s peak so far is the win at Mount Maunganui in January 2022, an eight-wicket chase over a full-strength New Zealand at home for the first time. It was Bangladesh’s first Test win over New Zealand.

Signature players

Shakib Al Hasan - 67 Tests, 4,505 runs at 38.84 and 237 wickets at 31.17. The only Bangladesh cricketer past 4,000 runs and 200 wickets in the format, and for most of the last fifteen years the fulcrum every Test side has been picked around.

Mushfiqur Rahim - 88 Tests, 5,676 runs at 38.09, and 137 dismissals as wicket-keeper. Three Test double centuries, the second of them 219 not out against Zimbabwe in 2018 - the highest Test score by a Bangladesh batter.

Tamim Iqbal - 70 Tests, 5,134 runs at 38.89, opening the batting through the whole of the 2010s. His 206 against Pakistan at Khulna in 2015 remains the only Test double century by a Bangladesh opener.

Home and away

Bangladesh have played 77 Tests at home and 65 away. Home: 13 wins to 50 losses and 14 draws (17% win rate). Away: 6 wins in 65 (9%). The six away wins are two in West Indies in 2009, two at Harare in 2013 and 2021, one at Colombo in 2017 and one at Mount Maunganui in 2022. The away record is the piece of the record that has moved most slowly across the decades.

Rivalries

Sri Lanka at 26 Tests is the most-played: 1 Bangladesh win to 20 losses. West Indies at 20 is next: 4 wins to 14. Zimbabwe at 18 (8 wins to 7) is the most-played opponent Bangladesh have a competitive record against. Against every other Test nation the record has been marked by a small number of narrow home wins and long stretches of learning at the wicket in more difficult conditions.

Recent form

Bangladesh’s 2020s so far: 25 Tests, 6 won, 17 lost, 2 drawn. The wins are Zimbabwe at Mirpur in 2020 and at Harare in 2021, the Mount Maunganui Test in 2022, the one-off home Tests against Ireland and Afghanistan in 2023, and New Zealand at Sylhet in 2023. World Test Championship finishes have been ninth and tenth. The rebuild since the veterans of the 2010s has not yet found the depth to make away Tests something other than a rebuilding exercise.

What CricArcade shows

The Follow-On lets you pick a Bangladesh XI from any point in the record above - a 2007 side around Shakib’s debut year, a 2015 XI in the middle of the batting order’s prime, a modern combination - and play a five-day Test at any of the venues that appear here. The engine reads real careers rather than a single rating, so Shakib bats and bowls the way he actually does, Tamim opens as the tempo he sets, and a home Test at Mirpur plays differently from an away one at Mount Maunganui. The results in this piece are the real ones; the game is the choice of which of them to try to repeat.