Bangladesh has broken the big record by scoring 546 runs in the one-off Test against Afghanistan. This is the third largest victory in the history of Test cricket in terms of runs, the first two occurrences being in 1928 and 1934 respectively. England beat Australia by 675 runs in 1928, while Australia returned six years later with a 562-run victory.
Chasing a mammoth target of 662, Afghanistan were never quite chasing the target as they lost wickets at regular intervals. They were never expected to chase down such a huge target and it looked like it was only a matter of time before they piled on. However, not many would have guessed that Afghanistan scored only 146 and 115 in both innings of the Test match.
Having said that, Bangladesh played some top-notch Test cricket over the last three days and didn’t give the visitors any chance to make a comeback. The only stage Afghanistan dominated the proceedings was on the second morning when Bangladesh lost five wickets for nine runs. But 382 in the first innings was always too big.
Afghanistan’s batsmen did not perform well then and they were bundled out for just 146 runs in 39 overs. Only four of their batsmen reached double figures and Nasir Jamal looked comfortable in the middle with Afsar Zazai scoring 35 and 36 respectively. Bangladesh did not follow on and bundled out the opposition, scoring 425 for the loss of four wickets in just 80 overs before declaring their second innings.
Afghanistan would have expected at least a struggle with the bat to chase down the big target. But only three of his batsmen reached double digits this time and two batsmen were also injured. While Shahidi suffered a concussion and was replaced by Bahir Shah, Zaheer Khan was hit on the elbow by Taskin Ahmed. He could only score 115 runs in his second innings with a huge margin of 546 runs.
Najmul Hossain Shanto was the star of the match for Bangladesh scoring two centuries and won the player of the match award for his heroics.