Bangladesh's Wins Over New Zealand, Match by Match

For the first fifteen years of Bangladesh's Test life, New Zealand was the fixture that produced nothing. Not a Test win, not an away one-day win, not even the isolated upset that Bangladesh managed against Pakistan and India in World Cups. New Zealand were not a great side for much of that period. They were simply better than Bangladesh in every condition either country offered, and they kept proving it.

Then it changed, and it changed in a specific order that says a good deal about how Bangladesh cricket developed. First they learned to win at home in fifty-over cricket, which spin and a slow surface made possible. Then they won a match in England, on neutral ground, with the bat. Then, in January 2022, they won a Test in New Zealand — with fast bowling, which nobody in the country had thought possible.

This page follows those wins in order, because the sequence is the story.

The 2010 whitewash

The first serious result came in October 2010, when New Zealand played a one-day series in Bangladesh and lost every match of it, four-nil. It was Bangladesh's first bilateral series win against a full-strength side from the established Test nations, and it was achieved at home on surfaces that suited them completely.

The mechanics were simple and became a template. Bangladesh bowled spin from both ends for long stretches, kept the scoring rate down through the middle overs, and then chased or defended modest totals with a batting order that did not need to score at seven an over. New Zealand's batters, accustomed to pace and bounce, found low slow turn genuinely difficult.

The series mattered beyond the result. It established that home advantage in Bangladesh was a real and exploitable asset rather than an excuse, an argument developed further in the guide to home advantage in Bangladesh. New Zealand have since lost further one-day series in Bangladesh, and the pattern has not fundamentally changed.

Cardiff, 9 June 2017

The most complete Bangladesh batting performance of that era happened at Sophia Gardens in a Champions Trophy group match that both sides had to win.

New Zealand made 265 for eight. Bangladesh lost early wickets and were in serious difficulty when Shakib Al Hasan and Mahmudullah came together. They added 224 for the fifth wicket, which remains Bangladesh's highest partnership for any wicket in one-day internationals. Shakib made 114 from 115 balls; Mahmudullah finished the job. Bangladesh reached 268 for five with sixteen balls to spare and won by five wickets.

It was Bangladesh's first win in the history of the Champions Trophy, it eliminated New Zealand, and it took Bangladesh into the semi-finals — the furthest they have gone at a senior global fifty-over tournament. They lost that semi-final to India.

What separated Cardiff from earlier upsets is that it was not a bowling ambush on a helpful pitch. It was a chase, in English conditions, built by two batters over more than thirty overs. Shakib's place in the country's cricket is clear in Shakib Al Hasan's player record.

Mount Maunganui, January 2022

The Test win at Bay Oval is the most improbable result Bangladesh has achieved.

Bangladesh had never won a Test against New Zealand, had never won any international match in New Zealand, and arrived with a squad missing Shakib. New Zealand were the reigning World Test Championship holders and were playing at home in January. Bangladesh had lost their previous three Test series comprehensively.

New Zealand batted first and made 328. Bangladesh replied with 458 — a first-innings lead of 130, built patiently over more than four days of match time. Then, on the fourth evening and fifth morning, Ebadot Hossain took six wickets for 46. New Zealand were bowled out for 169 and Bangladesh won by eight wickets.

Ebadot's spell is the passage Bangladeshi supporters return to. He was a fast bowler recruited from an air force volleyball background through a talent-hunt programme, he had a poor Test record before that week, and he bowled the fifth-day spell that won the match on a green New Zealand surface. Bangladesh's Test wins had always come from spin on home pitches. This one came from pace, away, and it broke the assumption that a Bangladeshi seam attack could not do the job. The wider development of that attack is set out in the guide to the growth of Bangladeshi fast bowling.

New Zealand won the second Test at Christchurch by an innings and the series finished level, which does not diminish the first result at all.

Sylhet, November 2023

The Test win at home followed twenty-two months later, and it completed the set: Bangladesh had now beaten New Zealand in Tests in both countries.

The first Test of the November 2023 series was played at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium. Najmul Hossain Shanto scored 105 in his first Test as captain, becoming the first Bangladesh batter to make a century while captaining the side. Taijul Islam took six for 75. Bangladesh won by 150 runs, and it was their first Test win over New Zealand on Bangladeshi soil.

New Zealand took the second Test in Dhaka by four wickets, with Glenn Phillips scoring heavily in both innings and taking three wickets, so again the series ended one apiece. The Sylhet ground is covered in the guide to Sylhet International Cricket Stadium.

Shanto's hundred matters as a marker. Bangladesh had spent years cycling through captains and had not previously had one make a century in the job, which is a small statistic that points at a larger problem in the wider history of Bangladesh cricket.

Napier, December 2023

Three weeks after Sylhet, Bangladesh toured New Zealand and won on the road in the short formats for the first time.

The one-day series went to New Zealand two-one. Bangladesh lost at Dunedin on Duckworth-Lewis-Stern and lost at Nelson, then won the third match at McLean Park in Napier by nine wickets. That was their first one-day international win against New Zealand in New Zealand, and it came fifteen years after their first tour there.

Four days later, at the same ground, Bangladesh won the first Twenty20 international by five wickets — their first T20 win against New Zealand in New Zealand. The second match was rained out and New Zealand won the third at Bay Oval, so the series was drawn.

Winning by nine wickets in Napier is not a narrow escape. It is the kind of margin that suggests the gap in conditions Bangladesh once found insurmountable had genuinely narrowed.

The ledger

Result	Where	When	Significance
ODI series won 4-0	Bangladesh	October 2010	First bilateral series win over a leading nation
Won by 5 wickets	Cardiff	June 2017	First Champions Trophy win; 224 partnership
Won by 8 wickets	Bay Oval	January 2022	First Test win over New Zealand, and in New Zealand
Won by 150 runs	Sylhet	November 2023	First home Test win over New Zealand
Won by 9 wickets	Napier	December 2023	First ODI win in New Zealand
Won by 5 wickets	Napier	December 2023	First T20I win in New Zealand

The overall record remains heavily in New Zealand's favour across all three formats, and no honest account pretends otherwise. What has changed is that the fixture now produces results rather than only defeats, and that Bangladesh has won in New Zealand in all three formats.

Why New Zealand specifically

There is a reason this fixture, rather than the ones against Australia or England, is where Bangladesh's away breakthroughs have come.

New Zealand plays more cricket against the smaller Test nations than the largest boards do, and schedules full tours rather than two-Test add-ons. Bangladesh has therefore had more attempts. New Zealand Cricket has also been consistently willing to tour Bangladesh, including in difficult periods, and that reciprocity has given Bangladesh more home fixtures against a side of that standard than the calendar would otherwise allow. The structure of New Zealand's game is described in the guide to New Zealand cricket structure.

The second reason is technical. New Zealand's batting has traditionally been strongest against pace and least comfortable against sustained spin on slow pitches, which is precisely the examination Bangladesh sets at home. Against Australia the mismatch runs the other way.

What the wins have not delivered

Bangladesh has still not won a Test series against New Zealand in either country. Both the 2022 and 2023-24 Test series finished level, and both times New Zealand responded to defeat by winning the next match comfortably.

That is the honest limit on this record. Bangladesh can beat New Zealand in a match, at home or away, in any format. Sustaining it across a series has been beyond them, and the reasons — batting depth, a thin pace reserve, the difficulty of following a good week with another one — are the same reasons that constrain the side generally. The longer arc is set out in the history of Bangladesh cricket.

The rest of Bangladesh's international record, competition by competition and opponent by opponent, sits on the cricket in Bangladesh hub, and the equivalent record against the neighbours is covered in the guides to the Bangladesh and Sri Lanka rivalry and the Bangladesh and Pakistan rivalry.

Sources and method

This page is built from published Test, one-day international and Twenty20 international scorecards and series records for matches between Bangladesh and New Zealand, ICC records for the 2017 Champions Trophy, and the tour records maintained for each series described. Partnership and bowling figures are as recorded in the official scorecards. Head-to-head aggregates change with every series and are described here in general terms rather than as fixed counts. Nothing on this page is computed from our own datasets; it is a descriptive account of results.