Bangladesh's Test Cricket History: The Long Climb

Bangladesh became a Test nation on 26 June 2000 and did not win a Test match until January 2005. They did not win one away from home until 2009, and that was against a West Indies side fielding nine debutants because of a players' strike. Twenty-five years in, the country has capped more than a hundred Test cricketers and won something in the region of twenty of the 150-odd Tests it has played.

Written like that, the record is grim, and any honest history has to start there rather than with the highlights. Written differently — a country with no first-class cricket in 1972 now beats England, Australia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in Test matches, wins a series in Pakistan, and has produced a batter with 6,800 Test runs — it is one of the more remarkable construction projects in the sport. Both readings are available from the same numbers.

June 2000, and an argument that has not ended

Full ICC membership was granted on 26 June 2000, on the strength of the 1997 ICC Trophy win and a creditable showing at the 1999 World Cup. The objection at the time, made loudly in England and Australia, was that Bangladesh had a first-class competition only a few years old and no bowler capable of a long spell, and that promoting them would produce a decade of one-sided matches.

That objection was, in the narrow sense, correct. The first decade did produce one-sided matches. What the objection did not account for is that there is no way to acquire the experience except by playing, and that the alternative — leaving Bangladesh outside Test cricket until it had somehow developed Test cricketers — was not a plan. The domestic structure the board then had to build in a hurry is described in the guide to BCB structure.

Dhaka, November 2000

The first Test was played at Dhaka against India in November 2000. Naimur Rahman, an off-spinner, captained, which was itself a statement about the resources available, and he took six for 132 in India's first innings — a return no Bangladeshi captain has approached since on debut.

Aminul Islam made 145 in Bangladesh's first Test innings, which remains one of the more remarkable individual performances in the country's cricket: a batter with no Test experience at all making a century in his country's first innings in the format. Bangladesh lost the match.

The pattern of that Test — a competitive first innings followed by a collapse — repeated itself for years. It is the specific weakness of a side whose batters have not spent enough time facing good bowling: they can survive a session and cannot survive four.

Four years, and no wins

Between November 2000 and January 2005 Bangladesh played more than thirty Tests and won none of them.

The captaincy passed from Naimur Rahman to Khaled Mashud, who lost all twelve of his, to Khaled Mahmud, who lost all nine, to Habibul Bashar. The bowling in that period was carried almost entirely by Mohammad Rafique, a left-arm spinner who reached 100 Test wickets before anybody else from Bangladesh and did it at an average above forty because he was bowling forty overs an innings on unhelpful surfaces. The full captaincy record is in the guide to Bangladesh's captains.

It was in this period that the phrase "not yet ready for Test cricket" became a permanent fixture of coverage, and in this period that the ICC introduced the Test Championship table on which Bangladesh sat last for a very long time.

Chattogram, January 2005

The first Test win came against Zimbabwe at Chattogram in January 2005, by 226 runs, and Bangladesh went on to win the series.

Zimbabwe at that point were themselves in decline, having lost most of their senior players to a dispute with their own board, so the win came against a side that was not what it had been. That qualification is worth making and it should not be allowed to swallow the result: Bangladesh set a target, bowled a Test side out twice, and won by a margin that admitted no argument. Every Test-playing country's first win came against somebody, and most of them came against opposition that happened to be weak at the time.

Fatullah 2006, and the near misses

The most instructive Test of the following period was one Bangladesh lost.

At the Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Stadium in Fatullah in April 2006, Bangladesh took a first-innings lead against a full-strength Australia. Shahriar Nafees made 138, Mohammad Rafique struck 65 including six sixes, and Australia had to bat properly in the fourth innings to win. Nobody had expected Bangladesh to make Australia uncomfortable for four days, and the match did more for the side's standing abroad than several of its wins.

There were other near misses in the same period, and they share a structure: Bangladesh competitive for three days and then short of the last two sessions of concentration or the one bowler who could take the final four wickets. The venue's own record is set out in the guide to cricket in Dhaka.

The Caribbean, July 2009

Bangladesh's first away Test win, and their first away series win, came in the West Indies in July 2009. They won the first Test at Kingstown by 95 runs and the second at St George's by four wickets, taking the series two-nil.

The West Indies fielded an almost entirely new side after a strike between their board and their players' association: nine of the fifteen selected were making their Test debuts. It was not a first-choice West Indies team and nobody in Bangladesh pretended otherwise.

What matters about it is not the strength of the opposition but the fact of an away win at all. Mashrafe Mortaza captained the first Test and won it before injury ended his part in the series; Shakib Al Hasan, at twenty-two, captained the second. It was the first time Bangladesh had whitewashed a Test nation in a series.

2016 and 2017: England, Sri Lanka, Australia

The period that changed how Bangladesh were regarded lasted about a year, and it produced three results.

In October 2016 Bangladesh beat England at Mirpur, the first time they had beaten one of the game's established powers in a Test. The bowling was done by an off-spinner playing his first Test series: Mehidy Hasan Miraz took nineteen wickets across the two matches and was named player of the series, becoming the first Bangladeshi and only the ninth cricketer anywhere to win that award on debut.

In March 2017, in Bangladesh's hundredth Test, they beat Sri Lanka at Colombo — their first Test win in Sri Lanka and the first against a side of that standing away from home.

In August 2017 they beat Australia at Mirpur. Three results in eleven months against England, Sri Lanka and Australia is a different kind of record from twenty-two wins in 150 Tests, and it established the pattern that has held since: Bangladesh at home, on a turning surface, can beat anybody.

The surfaces that make that possible, and the argument about whether they should, are examined in the guides to pitch types and conditions and home advantage. In February 2018 the ICC rated the Mirpur pitch used for a Test against Sri Lanka as below average and issued the venue a demerit point, which is the formal expression of the same argument.

Mount Maunganui, and Rawalpindi

The two best away results have come since 2022, and both were achieved with fast bowling.

On 1 January 2022 at the Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui, Bangladesh beat New Zealand by eight wickets — their first Test win over New Zealand anywhere and their first win in any format in New Zealand. Bangladesh made 458 in reply to 328, Mominul Haque scoring 88, and Ebadot Hossain took six for 46 as New Zealand were dismissed for 169 in the second innings. Shoriful Islam took three. New Zealand won the second Test at Christchurch by an innings and the series finished level, which does not diminish the first result.

In August and September 2024 Bangladesh beat Pakistan two-nil in Rawalpindi, the first Test victory over Pakistan in fourteen attempts and Bangladesh's best away series result. In the first Test they replied to 448 for 6 declared with 565, Mushfiqur Rahim making 191 from 341 balls, and won by ten wickets, Mehidy Hasan Miraz taking four for 21 in the second innings. In the second they won by six wickets, Litton Das making 138 from number seven in a 165-run stand with Mehidy, and the wickets falling to Mehidy's five for 61 and Hasan Mahmud's five for 43. Nahid Rana, a genuinely quick bowler of a kind Bangladesh had never had, took wickets in both matches.

That the two best away performances in the country's Test history were built on seam bowling rather than spin is the most significant development of the past five years, and it is traced in the guide to Bangladesh's fast bowling growth.

The record, and the players who built it

Landmark	Match	Date
First Test	v India, Dhaka	November 2000
First win	v Zimbabwe, Chattogram	January 2005
First away win and series win	v West Indies, Caribbean	July 2009
First win over England	Mirpur	October 2016
First win over Sri Lanka, 100th Test	Colombo	March 2017
First win over Australia	Mirpur	August 2017
First win in New Zealand	Mount Maunganui	January 2022
Largest win, 546 runs	v Afghanistan, Mirpur	June 2023
First series win in Pakistan	Rawalpindi	2024

Four players account for most of the run-scoring and wicket-taking. Mushfiqur Rahim is Bangladesh's leading Test run-scorer with 6,842 runs at 39.09 in 104 Tests, including three double centuries and the country's highest score, 219 not out. Tamim Iqbal made 5,134 at 38.89 with ten centuries. Shakib Al Hasan took 246 wickets at 31.72 while scoring 4,609 runs, and his seven for 36 against New Zealand in October 2008 remains the best Test bowling by a Bangladeshi. Mehidy Hasan Miraz has passed 220 wickets and reached his first hundred in twenty-four Tests, faster than any Bangladeshi bowler.

The 546-run win over Afghanistan at Mirpur in June 2023 belongs in the list on its own terms — it is the largest Test victory by runs anywhere since 1934 — while being a match against a side playing its first Test in Bangladesh. Najmul Hossain Shanto made a hundred in each innings.

Why the record is still what it is

Three things, and none of them is quickly fixable.

The away batting is the first. Bangladesh's Test batters have been developed on slow, low surfaces and are examined abroad on fast ones, which is the specific problem set out in the survey of Bangladesh's great opening batters. Until the domestic game routinely produces pitches with pace and bounce, or until players spend more seasons outside Bangladesh, that gap persists.

The second is volume of four-day cricket. The domestic calendar is squeezed by a fifty-over club league with national status and a franchise tournament, as the guide to club cricket history describes, and a young batter can finish a season with very few four-day innings.

The third is selection continuity. Bangladesh have used thirteen Test captains and rotated their top order constantly, which means very few players get the fifteen Tests it takes to establish a method.

What has changed, and it is not a small thing, is that Bangladesh now go into an away Test with a genuine seam attack and a realistic chance. Two of their nine landmark results have come in the past four years. For the country's record in the other formats, see the guides to ODI cricket history and Twenty20 international history, and for the rest of the game, the cricket in Bangladesh hub.

Sources and method

Match details, scores, margins and individual figures on this page come from published scorecards and series records for the Tests described, and from ICC records for the granting of full membership in 2000 and the February 2018 pitch rating. Career aggregates are taken from published international career records and are given as at the most recently completed series; figures for active players will move. Bangladesh's overall win total is described in approximate terms because it changes with every series and because different sources count abandoned matches differently. The circumstances of the West Indies squad in 2009 and of Zimbabwe's decline in 2005 are stated because they are part of the record, not to discount the results. Nothing here is computed from our own datasets.