Bangladesh v Australia First T20 Report Card

Featuring Ozymandias and extinguishers

Ozymandias
Grade: B+

A very normal night of sports viewing began with this game. It would not, however, end with it, as we had both the Australian women and men playing Bangladesh in T20s (the men here as part of their white ball tour, the women in England as part of the T20 Women’s World Cup), while the second England v New Zealand Test and the second State of Origin rugby league match all overlapped at some point around 8pm. Good stuff. The kind of sports viewing night that you might expect to be indulged in by Ozymandias in his Antarctic media centre.

“I watched that 35 minutes ago.”

The men were up first, and seemed determined to do their best to minimise any coincidental play, reducing Bangladesh to 6/78 with still 30 minutes (women), an hour (England v NZ) and 60+x minutes (the notoriously loose Origin kick-off time) to go. It all made for an absolutely thrilling contest.

Bangladesh did their part to avoid overlap too, heroically attempting to hit every single ball for six even when those efforts fell short and they were caught in the outfield on, oh, eight or nine occasions. Never give up, lads!

Extinguishers
Grade: D

Australia finally bowled Bangladesh out for 131 in nineteen overs, sending that match to the innings break just as the women’s game started. Chivalry is alive!

When the men resumed, captain Josh Inglis was dismissed early. Cooper Connolly came to the crease, dotted out the first ball, then hit his next three for four, four and six. The young lad obviously as keen as the rest of us to get back to the hotel to watch a big night of sport.

So keen that he perhaps didn’t even notice he was batting with the actual T20 captain, Mitch Marsh. Frankly, I hadn’t noticed either. Wasn’t even aware he was back. Or why he hadn’t been there previously. Lots of details have evaded my mind on this tour.

Anyway, Marsh was soon out, and Connolly followed him a few overs later. But only after scoring 47 (27) and extinguishing any hope Bangladesh might have had of winning this match.

How extinguished was the hope? So badly extinguished that it was relegated to the iPad for its final ten overs. A comfortable win for Australia, who this time didn’t even need the batting heroics of Adam Zampa to seal the victory.