Six Wickets From History: Bangladesh Have Australia in Trouble in Darwin
Australia closed the third day at 161 for 4, still 67 runs behind, and Bangladesh need six wickets to win a Test in Australia for the first time. Josh Hazlewood took six and passed 300 Test wickets, and it may not be enough.
Bangladesh have never won a Test match in Australia. On Saturday evening in Darwin they went to bed six wickets away from it.
Where the match stands
Australia finished the third day on 161 for 4, still 67 runs behind. Bangladesh made 426 in their first innings and lead by 228 on first innings, and they need six more wickets to complete one of the largest results in their Test history.
Cameron Green is unbeaten on 43 from 86 balls and Alex Carey on 19 from 50. They are batting to save a Test match, and they are doing it on the third evening rather than the fifth.
How Australia got there
Hasan Mahmud gave Bangladesh the start their bowlers had earned, removing both Australian openers with the new ball. Green and Carey stopped the bleeding before stumps, but four down and still behind is not a position that improves on its own.
Hazlewood's day, and why it did not settle anything
Josh Hazlewood took six wickets in the Bangladesh first innings and passed 300 wickets in Test cricket in the process. On almost any other day that is the story of the match.
Here it is a footnote to a bigger one, because the six for limited Bangladesh to 426 rather than preventing a lead. A bowler can have the best day of his season and still watch his side fall behind, which is what happens when the batting either side of him keeps failing.
Why this is bigger than one Test
We wrote before this series began that Bangladesh had not toured Australia for a Test since 2003, that Darwin had not hosted a Test since 2004, and that our own records held nothing at all for this venue because no Test had been played here in the period our data covers.
That was the point of the fixture: unfamiliar ground for everybody, in a window of the Australian year when almost no Test cricket is played. Two days later it is Australia who look least at home on it.
What Sunday needs
Bangladesh need six wickets. Australia need Green and Carey to bat a long way into the fourth day and then to set something that asks a question of a side that has never had to answer one here.
The Test still has two days. It also has a scoreboard that says the visiting team is winning it, and there has never been an evening in Australian cricket where Bangladesh could say that.