Shoriful Islam top-scored with 14, but Bangladesh still collapsed to 64 in the first innings of the second Test in Mackay on Saturday. Mitchell Starc drove the damage with 6 for 12 in 10 overs, and Bangladesh's brief recovery never escaped the shadow of a top-order failure that left four of the first five batters without a score.
Bangladesh's total became their fourth-lowest in Test cricket. It was also their lowest against Australia and their lowest on Australian soil, a sharp fall from the 426 they posted in the opening Test in Darwin only days earlier.
Starc strikes in Mackay
Starc took a wicket with the first ball of the Test, then kept breaking through as Bangladesh slipped to 12 for 5 and later 39 for 9. The figures gave Australia a severe opening grip on the innings, with Bangladesh's top six contributing only 14 runs between them before the lower order had to rebuild what was left.
The scale of the dismissal pattern matters because it shows where the innings disappeared. Shadman Islam, Tanzid Hasan, Najmul Hossain Shanto and Litton Das were all out for ducks, while Mominul Haque made 9 and Mushfiqur Rahim made 5. By the time Bangladesh reached the tail, the scoreline had already moved beyond repair.
Shoriful Islam and Taijul Islam
Shoriful Islam and Taijul Islam added 25 runs for the tenth wicket, delaying the finish and carrying Bangladesh past a score that might have been even smaller. Shoriful Islam ended as Bangladesh's outright top scorer with 14, a figure that matched the lowest score by a No.11 to finish as his team's top scorer in a completed Test innings.
That detail is unusual because the innings had already shut down the familiar batting order. Four of Bangladesh's first five batters failed to score, so the last man became the highest scorer while the top order sat out of the scorebook entirely.
Bangladesh after Darwin
The contrast with Darwin is stark. Bangladesh had made 426 in the opening Test there only days earlier, and the move from that total to 64 in Mackay leaves a gap that the scorecard alone cannot hide.
Bangladesh now carry the weight of a batting line-up that has produced one extreme on one pitch and another on the next. For Shoriful Islam, the immediate fact is simpler: batting at No.11, he still finished with more runs than anyone else in Bangladesh's innings, and Starc removed him to close the effort at 64.
