The cricketing world was on the receiving end of a shock win when Bangladesh defeated Australia in the 1st Test of the series. Prior to the commencement, everyone was expecting Australia to steamroll the visitors into submission. That wasn't the case (so far) and the Aussies are being ripped to shreads as a result.
Bangladesh thrashed Australia by nine wickets on the fourth day of the series-opener in Darwin to complete one of Test cricket's greatest upsets.
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.
After bowling the hosts out for 284 and needing 57 to win, Mominul Haque cut Beau Webster to the boundary for the winning runs to seal the nation's first Test victory in Australia.
The moment sparked jubilation among Bangladesh players and staff as they celebrated arguably their greatest victory in 26 years of competing in Test cricket.
Australia are the top-ranked Test nation while Bangladesh haven't played a series under the five-day format in the country since a 2-0 defeat in 2003.
The visitors were on top of the match throughout but it was spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz who took the spotlight on day four as he took 5-66 to dismiss Australia for 284; leaving just 57 runs needed to win.
All-rounder Cameron Green showed fight with a valiant 104 but after being bowled by Hasan Mahmud; Australia's faint hopes of saving the Test all but disappeared.
Seamer Mahmud was named player of the match after claiming 6-55 in the first innings and 3-56 in the second.
"This is the biggest win so far for Bangladesh in any format," captain Najmul Hossain Shanto said. "Going forward we want to do something special in the future. I'm very happy, proud of myself and the way the boys played. We did a lot of hard work."
Speaking on ABC, commentator Jim Maxwell described the result as one of the most "embarrassing defeats that Australia have ever suffered in Test cricket."
Miraz's second innings performance followed a gritty 65 with the bat on day three that helped Bangladesh into a healthy first innings lead; before he dismissed talisman Steve Smith in Australia's second innings to set up victory.
The spinner continued his form on day four as he had wicketkeeper Alex Carey caught behind for 30 before bowling all-rounder Webster for five with a pair of sumptuous deliveries to bring Australia's tail into play.
The 28-year-old then had Australia captain Pat Cummins caught in close for eight, before a defiant 43-run eighth-wicket partnership between Green and Mitchell Starc was ended when Taskin Ahmed had the latter caught behind for 18.
Green dug in for his third Test century in his home country in a timely knock amid criticism of his place in the side but after being dismissed by Mahmud, Miraz removed Nathan Lyon to leave Bangladesh in touching distance of victory.
Despite losing opener Tanzid Hasan Tamim for a duck to Josh Hazlewood in the second over, Mominul's unbeaten 30 and Shadman Islam's 25 sealed the resounding win.
"They outplayed us in all facets, they were patient and disciplined," said Cummins. "I thought our prep was spot-on, no excuses."
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 don't 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 (Campbell Thompson) with one first-class match to his name. 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.
As is always the case when an underdog wins, celebration of one side will be offset by knives coming out for the other. A team as well supplied as Australia simply can't drop matches like this without repercussions, at least from supporters, even if selectors do as past behaviour suggests and stand by their side.
Still, though, the angst is doubtless flowing among a portion of the national fanbase; there aren’t a lot of obvious candidates to blame. Of those under most question before the match, Cameron Green came good with a century that for a while gave Australia a chance for revival, Marnus Labuschagne built well for an hour-and-a-half before making an error and Jake Weatherald had a bad Test; as openers are especially wont to do.
While administrators have looked down their noses against Bangladesh, Australia’s players this past week can’t be accused of the same. They would have expected to win, of course but that doesn’t mean they weren’t ready to do the work to make that happen.
There was no complacency in their comments before the game or their conduct during it. There were errors, chasing the angle or playing the wrong line or chopping on due to angled bats and that will renew the usual debates about rustiness and match-play prep.
Nobody got out to contemptuous slogs. Nobody took it easy in the field. The fast bowling had some good new-ball bursts and old-ball discipline. Nathan Lyon lacked pep but he hasn’t played since the Nixon administration. The Australians didn’t take this match for granted. They just weren’t good enough, and got soundly beaten by a team that was.
Eight days earlier, exactly 311 metres away from the Marrara Stadium pitch as the crow flies, another humiliation had taken place. Bangladesh had been bowled out for 54 to lose by an innings to a Cricket Australia XI in the three-day tour match.
The CA XI boasted only two Test players (Sam Konstas and Kurtis Paterson), who had seven Test caps between them. A 22-year-old left-arm seamer with one first-class game to his name took 8 for 25. A 22-year-old batter with a first-class average of 20.79 made 130.
This defeat had come on the heels of Bangladesh losing to Zimbabwe by an innings in three days in Harare in June.
Bangladesh's cool-headed coach, Phil Simmons, admitted his side had "let ourselves down" in the tour game.
There was genuine concern in Australia about what was about to unfold. After Cricket Australia lost A$5-10 million (US$3.3-6.6m) thanks to two two-day Ashes Tests last summer; the thought of another was troubling.
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It was even worse for the Northern Territory government, who had tipped in A$500 000 ($355 000) to host the game. There was great risk for NT Cricket, too, the governing body for the game in an underfunded cricketing territory, who had sold 15,000 tickets and were fighting desperately to host more international cricket, and specifically Test cricket, after 22 years without it.
The curator, Jake Pavlich, was nervous, having never produced a Test pitch before. A drop-in had hosted only one first-class game in 2025 and no cricket at all in 2026. There had been unseasonably humid weather in the week leading in; which created some unknowns with his pitch preparation.
One Australian newspaper reprinted a quote from 2003, when former Australia batter David Hookes had suggested Steve Waugh's team should try and beat Bangladesh in a single day. They beat them in three, by an innings.
Amid all the worry, Travis Head provided a prophetic statement when asked whether he read anything into the tour game. "Not a hell of a lot," he said ahead of the first Test. "I've played in some pretty poor ones over the years as well and they're always a challenge because you've got your mind probably elsewhere. That's no disrespect to the CA team, but there'll be guys in that Bangladesh team that are only purely worrying about Thursday and what they need to get out of it."
All the talk at the start of the week was about anything other than the contest itself. Alex Carey, Jake Weatherald and Taskin Ahmed did a joint press conference on the East Point beachfront on Monday before the trio took a boat ride to see the mangroves; the same boat the two Australians had been out fishing in the previous day.
Taskin cut a relaxed figure in his purple sunglasses, showing child-like joy about the "honour" of playing in Australia and the hope of chatting to his heroes Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.
Carey was asked about Australia's 21-Test odyssey to come; with an obligatory question about England.
The week was also all about local lad Weatherald's homecoming. Local journalists dressed up like him at press conferences and he mentioned trying to get a Darwin Cricket Club reunion on the third evening of the Test.
Taskin was asked about how he would bowl to Head. Neither Head nor Weatherald was asked about how they would handle Hasan Mahmud; a name that wasn't breathed once across the seven press conferences held across three days leading into the game but one who was familiar with Darwin, having played for Bangladesh A in the Top End T20 series last year.
Tanzid Hasan, another name not mentioned in the build-up, had played for Bangladesh's High Performance XI in the same tournament in Darwin in 2024.
Hasan and Ebadot Hossain charged in to bowl to their team-mates on Wednesday, less than 24 hours out from the first ball of the match. There were furrowed brows among the experienced Australian journalists watching, who noted that none of Australia's cartel would bowl with such effort the day before a game, especially given the heat and humidity, with a premium placed on remaining fresh for when it mattered. It's hard to argue with that thinking; each of those bowlers has more than 300 Test wickets and they form a trio of all-time greats.
Along similar lines, one of the great anecdotes from Australia's 2023 ODI World Cup triumph was their coaches visiting Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium after sunset when no one was around to inspect how much dew was on the ground in the evening. Such attention to detail instructed them to bowl first at the toss and the rest became history.
However, on Wednesday, they didn't inspect Marrara Stadium's drop-in surface until midday; when most of the morning moisture had burned off. The pitch was "rock hard" underneath, according to Cummins. A bat-first plan was formulated.
Winning the toss on Thursday was Australia's only victory of the week. The decision to bat proved costly. The ball moved more for two hours than at any other time in the match. Mahmud bagged Weatherald and Head for the first time in Tests but not the last. Australia rolled over for 198.
Even then there was a sense that it would be inconsequential. They were bowled out for 132 in their first innings of the Ashes and won the Test and the series easily.
In the second over of Bangladesh's reply, however, Australia dropped a catch. It was the first of five that would be grassed. Bangladesh batted for 138 overs and posted 426. Hazlewood, who took 6 for 89, admitted to some match rust in terms of his consistency despite excellent physical preparation.
Bangladesh's visiting journalists had as much fun covering Jason Gillespie's presence as a radio commentator in Darwin as they did the Test itself. Gillespie needs no invitation to talk about his 201* in Chattogram in 2006 and happily obliged.
Out in the middle, it was assumed another Australian would do something similar to get the home side out of a jam; with one player noting quietly that such an individual score was out there for anyone good enough.
Australia just about managed to score 200-plus collectively the second time round. Twenty-one of the first 23 wickets of the match had fallen to seamers. Mehidy, the Bangladesh offspinner, then claimed five of the next seven - on an Australian drop-in, to only further confuse any who had mistaken the venue for Dhaka rather than Darwin.
As Australia's lead crept past 50 with only one wicket remaining, one travelling journalist said: "This is tough for Bangladesh now." It raised questions among the local journalists, who were already putting the finishing touches on their accounts of Australia's imminent defeat. "If you have seen what we've seen, you'd say the same thing," came another response.
The truth was, no one had seen anything like this.
As Tanzid and Shadman Islam walked out to bat to chase 57 for a famous victory, another nervous whisper was heard: "So three more than they scored in the practice match."
There were nerves in the Bangladesh dressing room as Shadman inside-edged Starc over the stumps to get off the mark. There was dread when Hazlewood rattled Tanzid's off stump with 53 needed. Starc then reared a rocket into the shoulder of Shadman's bat, but it flew over a leaping Smith at second slip and away to the rope to a collective sigh.
From there the chase was a breeze. With 20 to win, Nathan Lyon was bowling with three men on the fence. Cummins nearly gave Head a bowl when there were concerns Australia might be penalised for a slow over-rate.
The Bangladesh chants grew louder until they reached a crescendo when Mominul cracked the winning runs. The entire Bangladesh touring party leapt to their feet. They celebrated not with a huge group hug but rather a heap of high-tens the kind their coach gave his team-mates when West Indies pulled off a one-run heist in Adelaide 33 years ago. Simmons, instead, gave his captain Najmul Hossain Shanto a bear hug.
Nine years after he and Litton Das had first come to Darwin for a training camp, Shanto had become the first Bangladesh captain to win a Test on Australian soil. Mushfiqur Rahim had waited 21 years and 103 Tests to get a chance to play a Test in Australia.
He sprinted to the middle to grab a stump as a souvenir of victory. There were tears too from chief selector, Habibul Bashar, who had made Bangladesh's only half-century in their innings defeat to Australia in Darwin 23 years earlier.
The team posed for selfies with fans and then a squad photo on the ground. Shanto took a video call from Bangladesh's prime minister, Tarique Rahman, while Cummins looked shell-shocked as he faced questions about the defeat. A short while later, Shanto was describing it as Bangladesh's greatest ever victory and no one could argue with that.
Nobody who has watched Bangladesh’s quarter century of Test cricket would have expected this win. Hence, the scale of the upset. What Bangladesh have also done is to overturn that expectation, perhaps for good. They have proved to themselves that they can play this way, they have dragged Australia off top spot in the World Test Championship and they have a chance to go again in the second Test. Australia desperately need to win that, to settle nerves. But whatever happens in Mackay, Darwin will stand.
It demands that Bangladesh be brought in from the periphery. Having not played in England for 17 years, England’s next summer grants them a single Test. Australia are unlikely to have marked them down for the next future tours program; having hosted them in the current cycle.
India took 24 years to invite them over. If the sport is to flourish, nations with potential must be given time and space to grow. This week Bangladesh showed what they have been able to build on their own. The more help they are given, the more they could lift the global game. In the last week, they already have.
Darwin will always hold a special place in Bangladeshi hearts as the city where their cricketers did something truly extraordinary.
As for Australia, they have wasted little time in making a change to their top order, with Jake Weatherald dropped in the wake of their stunning nine-wicket loss to Bangladesh in Darwin. Matthew Renshaw has been called-up to the squad and the 30-year-old is likely to partner Travis Head at the top of the order in Mackay.
Weatherald's first Test since being handed a national contract in April produced scores of 23 and 0. He edged behind in the first innings before chopping on in the second. Those twin failures brought his career average after 12 innings to 20.36.
The decision is a swift reversal after Weatherald had been rewarded for his performances alongside Head during Australia's 4-1 Ashes triumph. He had also made technical adjustments to address the LBW and bowled dismissals that had troubled him against England. "Yeah, there was some change to Jake in terms of where he lined up and his movement patterns," McDonald said of Weatherald's adjustments.
"It's always hard to critique small sample sizes on whether it holds up [at international level]. He dragged one on and drove at one in the first innings and was dismissed; it's probably harder with that smaller sample size to say, 'Yep, that's going to hold up under pressure'. But there was some change though."
Renshaw's credentials make him the most straightforward replacement to slot straight back in. He was the best-performing Sheffield Shield opener last season, producing three centuries in 10 innings while averaging just under 50. He has also scored two first-class hundreds at Mackay; which will host its first Test.
His international experience is another factor in his favour. Renshaw has 14 Tests behind him, although his most recent appearance came in Delhi three years ago, when he was batting in the middle order.
Australia do have another option in Josh Inglis. The 31-year-old remains part of the 13-man squad and, although he has generally batted at no.5 or lower in Sheffield Shield cricket, has previously been identified by the selectors as a potential top-order option.
Inglis has shown he can handle the role, having opened for the Cricket Australia XI against England Lions last November and returned scores of 40 and 125*.
Meanwhile, Marnus Labuschagne's position at no.3 is another issue for the selectors to consider. He managed only 1 and 31 in Darwin and has gone without an international hundred for almost three years. He averages 25.23 across his last 42 Test innings.
McDonald acknowledged the need for greater output from the no.3 batter; while pointing to the manner in which he had batted before his second-innings dismissal.
"Up until the point he got out [in his second innings against Bangladesh], you'd sit there and say [that] he was looking good, moving well, clipping off his pads and getting back through the ball down the ground," said McDonald.
"It's easy for me to sit here and try to defend that. But ultimately, it's 31. It's not a big score. He's lacked runs. He feels that. We feel that. We're working incredibly hard as a coaching group... we've got to get the best out of Marn as well.
"He's had a bit of a lull. He knows that he's gone to work. I think we saw some change in the way that he played, so that's good. Some of that work that he had done feels as though it's stuck up under pressure."
A week is a long time in politics. It has also proved a long time in Australian cricket and the career of Jake Weatherald.
After the nature of the defeat against Bangladesh, it was hard to see how Australia's selectors could avoid making a response, even though coach Andrew McDonald spoke about not making decisions based on emotions while the selection panel as a whole has always wanted to show loyalty.
They had, in effect, done so with Weatherald during the off-season, handing him a Cricket Australia contract, which, they are always keen to stress, does not guarantee selection, after a debut Ashes series where he finished with an average in the low 20s. "We liked what we saw," chair of selectors, George Bailey, said when the squad to face Bangladesh was announced.
When Weatherald was speaking ahead of the Darwin Test, which was a significant homecoming for the left-hander who had watched the Australians as a child in 2003 and been inspired to becoming a Test cricketer, there was an assumption that he would at least have these two matches to strength his claims to go to South Africa.
Things were going to have to go very badly for that to change. That's exactly what happened.
While a selection call felt inevitable in the aftermath of Bangladesh's nine-wicket win, until Tuesday lunchtime it was hard to know which way it would fall. The selectors themselves hadn't made up their minds until late Monday. There was a thought that patience could have run out with Marnus Labuschagne after scores of 1 and 31 but he lives to fight another day barring a left-field final XI for the second Test in Mackay. He faces a critical Test.
Instead, it was Weatherald who paid the price and Australia's revolving door of openers will keep spinning. Steven Smith, Nathan McSweeney, Sam Konstas, Labuschagne himself and now Weatherald have all come and gone from the role since David Warner's retirement in early 2024.
Weatherald is 31, so it's not impossible that he can earn another go; but it feels like a tough road back. His call-up came on the back of a 2024-25 Sheffield Shield season where he averaged 50.33, so it's difficult to know how the selectors would judge things even if he were able to repeat that.
Since the Ashes, which included a stint with Leicestershire during the off-season, Weatherald made some technical changes to try and avoid falling over as he much as he had against England, whose one of few successes was regularly trapping him in front. Therefore, perhaps it was inevitable that his first dismissal back in Test cricket would be edging a drive to a wide ball.
The second-innings drag-on against Bangladesh ultimately sealed his fate, although it was also the shot of an opener who had fielded for 138 overs.
Barring any really funky calls over the final XI, it's to Matt Renshaw the selectors have turned. Now 30, there is a sense that he has entered into the sweet spot of his career. He made three centuries last season and averaged 49.90 in the last Sheffield Shield season; although as recent evidence shows, that is no guarantee of success for Australia. The signs in white-ball cricket have been encouraging, not least in being able to absorb the pressure of the top level.
It's not the first time that a calamity has given Renshaw his chance. For this change of opener, there won't be a cap presentation alongside it. Renshaw's first call-up came when there was a far more dramatic overhaul following the innings defeat against South Africa in Hobart in 2016-17. In his fourth Test, he made 184 against Pakistan at the SCG and at the end of that summer, was averaging 63. Life proved tougher on the subcontinent and after six Tests against India and Bangladesh, he was dropped.
Renshaw was recalled in the fallout to the ball-tampering scandal for the Johannesburg Test in 2018 but then didn't play again until briefly being selected as a middle-order option in early 2023.
Renshaw, an experienced player who has been there before, completes a full range of options Australia have tried at the top: Smith was the world-class player who gave it a go; McSweeney a somewhat square-peg and round-hole solution; Konstas the fearless youngster with no baggage; Labuschagne the stop-gap on a loyalty ticket and Weatherald the senior pro whose domestic form was rewarded.
Amid all this, Australia had an opener score more than 600 runs in their previous series. Travis Head was spectacular in the Ashes after being promoted when Usman Khawaja was injured in Perth.
After one modest Test - and Hasan Mahmud deserves huge credit for his accuracy against him - the discussion about using Head at the top has already begun; with former Aussie, Matthew Hayden, saying he should move to no. 3.
A lot has happened in a week.
I like seeing a major upset. It proves that anything is possible. It also shows that you can't take an opposition lightly. I hope that Bangladesh rattle the Aussies even further so that they will be in disarray when they hit South African shores.
However, only time will tell if this result was a fluke or not. For small nations, these kind of performances are one in a million rather than a dime a dozen.
I believe that Australia are depending on the old and experienced. Every player - apart from their "golden boy" Cameron Green - is in their 30s. Some youth wouldn't kill them. It'll help them develop and transition for the future.