Australia and Bangladesh's 2nd Test has reached an abrupt conclusion. The anticipated re-match finished in two days. Considering the circumstances, it's can be considered anti-climactic. Shockingly, this is only the fourth shortest match in Test cricket.
Justin Langer didn't mince his words after Australia’s two-day demolition of Bangladesh in Mackay. "Two-day Test matches (are) unacceptable," the former Australia opener told SEN, arguing that such finishes are bad for spectators, children watching the game and, economically, for Cricket Australia and the grassroots game.
He also pushed back against the easy explanation that pitches are always to blame, pointing instead to what he sees as a decline in basic batting technique and footwork.
Mackay certainly provides plenty of ammunition for the debate. Australia needed only 750 legal deliveries to beat Bangladesh by an innings and 51 runs; with all 30 wickets falling in little more than four sessions. Mitchell Starc’s 10-wicket match haul was the headline act but the extraordinary speed of the result has inevitably shifted attention towards the nature of the contest itself.
By balls bowled, Mackay is the fourth-shortest completed Test in history, and the second shortest this century behind India’s famous victory over South Africa at Newlands in 2024. That Cape Town Test lasted just 642 deliveries and remains the overall record.
The list of the five shortest Tests is striking, particularly because three of the top five came before the modern era of cricket.
1. South Africa vs. India, Cape Town, 2024 – 642 balls
India won by seven wickets after South Africa were dismissed for 55 and 176. Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah dominated with the ball, while Aiden Markram’s century provided the only substantial resistance. The match lasted only five sessions.
2. Australia vs. South Africa, Melbourne, 1932 – 656 balls
Australia won by an innings and 72 runs after South Africa were bowled out for 36 and 45. Bert Ironmonger was the destroyer-in-chief, taking an incredible 11 wickets for 24 runs in the match. The game held the record for the shortest completed Test for 92 years.
3. West Indies vs. England, Bridgetown, 1935 – 672 balls
England won by four wickets in a remarkable contest shaped by two declarations and a difficult surface. The match remains one of the most unusual entries on the list.
4. Australia vs. Bangladesh, Mackay, 2026 – 750 balls
rom their shock Darwin defeat with an emphatic innings victory. Bangladesh made 64 and 95, while Australia replied with 210. Starc took 10 wickets.
5. England vs. Australia, Manchester, 1888 – 788 balls
England won by an innings and 21 runs, completing a match that lasted fewer than 800 deliveries. It remains the shortest Ashes Test by balls, although the 2025 Perth Test came relatively close at 847.
It took 750 balls from start to finish in the Mackay Test between Australia and Bangladesh; making it the fourth shortest completed men's Test match and the second-shortest in Australia.
Three of the last seven Tests in Australia have ended in two days. Only two two-day Tests had been played in Australia before this sequence
369 total runs in the Mackay Test were scored, the sixth lowest aggregate for a completed men's Test and also the second lowest for a Test in Australia; behind the 234 runs in the 1932 Melbourne Test against South Africa.
Bangladesh's totals of 64 and 95 in the Mackay Test was the first time they have been bowled out for less than 100 in both innings. Their previous lowest match aggregate was 187 against West Indies at North Sound in 2018.
Bangladesh are also the first team to be dismissed for less than 100 in both innings of a men's Test since Zimbabwe against New Zealand in Harare in 2005.
Australia's first-innings total of 210 in Mackay is the fourth-lowest to result in an innings win in men's Tests. Two of the top three lowest totals came when Australia were on the winning side; all three were before 1950.
It took Mitchell Starc 109 balls to complete his ten-wicket match haul in Mackay. Only four bowlers have taken ten wickets in fewer deliveries in a men's Test; Starc's is the fewest since Frank Woolley's 104 balls against Australia at The Oval in 1912.
Starc's feat is the quickest for Australia, bettering his own effort when he took his first ten wickets in last year's Ashes Test in 123 ballsin Perth.
Starc has now got 4 ten-wicket-hauls in Tests, only behind Dennis Lillee (7) among Australian quicks. Since the start of the millennium, only Dale Steyn (5) has more ten-wicket hauls than Starc among fast bowlers.
6 Bangladesh batters were dismissed for a duck by Starc in the Mackay Test. Only Jim Laker (8), during his 19-wicket match haul against Australia in 1956, had more in a Test. Eight other bowlers were also responsible for six ducks in a men's Test, the last of them being Pakistan's Yasir Shah against New Zealand in 2018.
Eight of Starc's ten wickets were of left-hand batters. Only Nathan Lyon (10), also against Bangladesh in 2017, took more wickets of left-hand batters in a men's Test. Trent Boult against England in 2015, R Ashwin against South Africa in 2015 and Mehidy Hasan Miraz against England in 2016 also had eight wickets.
Shoriful Islam's bowling figures of 7-48 in Australia's first innings in Mackay are the third best for Bangladesh in Tests. He is also the first Bangladesh quick to bag a seven-wicket haul in Tests.
1886 was the previous instance - before Shoriful - of a left-arm quick taking a seven-for against Australia in men's Tests: Dick Barlow in Manchester.
Mackay therefore sits in extraordinary company. But Langer’s larger question remains: when a Test is designed to last five days yet repeatedly finishes in two, is the problem the pitch, the players, or the way modern Test cricket is played? That debate is unlikely to end with Mackay.
The double standards surrounding Test pitches were laid bare in Mackay. When India produced a surface in Ahmedabad in 2021 that made batting extremely difficult and contributed to a Test finishing inside two days, it was subjected to widespread criticism.
Yet, when Australia have now hosted a Test that lasted even less than two days, with the pitch heavily favouring fast bowling, the conversation has largely centred on the brilliance of Mitchell Starc.
Australia needed this result. After Bangladesh stunned them in Darwin, another defeat would have seriously damaged their World Test Championship (WTC) campaign. Instead, they responded emphatically in Mackay, winning inside two days and restoring some order to a series that had threatened to become historic for Bangladesh. The manner of the victory raises a legitimate question about the standards applied to Test pitches.
Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto acknowledged as much. "It was quite difficult for all the batters," he said. "Their batting also struggled with Shoriful. It was quite a difficult wicket to bat on, to be very honest."
The numbers are stark. Bangladesh were dismissed for 64, Australia made 210 and Bangladesh then collapsed for 95. Eighteen wickets fell on the opening day. The Test was completed before two full days had elapsed and, with only 750 balls bowled, it became the fourth-shortest Test in history.
Compare that with Ahmedabad in 2021. Former Aussie, Mark Waugh, described the Chennai surface earlier in that series – a three-and-a-half-day finish – as "unacceptable at Test match level," while Michael Vaughan mocked the Ahmedabad pitch with a spoof report after England were bowled out twice inside two days. Yet 842 balls were bowled in that Test – quite a few more than in Mackay.
This is not an argument against bowler-friendly pitches or in favour of batting paradises. A lively surface can produce compelling Test cricket. Starc’s spell was breathtaking. Shoriful’s response was equally impressive. The question is consistency.
If a turning pitch that makes batting difficult is deemed unacceptable, a urface that produces a two-day Test through extreme assistance for fast bowlers should invite the same scrutiny. The assessment standard should be based on the quality and balance of Test cricket, not the country preparing the pitch.
I must say that I am massively disappointed with Bangladesh. I was looking forward to this match. I was hoping for an evenly contested match. Short Test matches are annoying. It might be exciting to see but the hangover of missing days is horrible. It's a financial disaster for the hosting board.