Pakistan suffered a humiliating loss to Bangladesh in the first Test of the two-match series in Rawalpindi on Sunday, August 25. Despite the match looking poised for a draw, Pakistan fell like a pack of cards in their second innings on the final day to give the visitors an easy win.
Bangladesh bowled out the Men in Green for a mere 146 and chased down the paltry total of 30 with 10 wickets in hand. The win handed Bangladesh their first-ever Test victory over Pakistan. This was Pakistan's first loss by 10 wickets at home.
Meanwhile, Pakistan have now owned another embarrassing record. They have become the first team, to lose two successive matches at home at a venue despite scoring 400-plus totals. The Men in Green posted 448/6d in the first innings with Saud Shakeel scoring 141 and Mohammad Rizwan making 171.
Bangladesh made 565 in reply and in the second innings, the hosts were blown away with some brilliant bowling by the Bangladesh spinners - Shakib Al Hasan and Mehidy Hasan Miraz. They were bowled out for 146 and the Bangla Tigers chased the 30-run target easily.
Before this, Pakistan had lost their last match in Rawalpindi to England in December 2022 despite scoring 579 in the first innings.
Speaking on the loss, Pakistan skipper Shan Masood defended the team's decision to play with all seamers in the match. "We had anticipated the pitch to offer more assistance to the seamers. Looking at the pitch, we expected it to do more,” Masood said at the post-match conference.
"If we played 3 fast bowlers, we would be pushing them to the limit and the spinner would be bowling 25-30 overs a day, which we wanted to avoid. We thought that with the weather, it may not even last the full 5 days. At the end of the day, we got it wrong," he added.
“We wanted to go for a win in the match and thus felt we had enough runs on the board to declare. But the Bangladesh batters showed a lot of discipline and intent in their first innings. Mushfiq and Miraz batted really well,” Shanto further said.
