Chasing more than 200 in the fourth innings of a Test match is a dangerous proposition and in the subcontinent, it becomes even more precarious given the amount of turn that the pitches offer. However, for Pakistan openers, it turned out to be a walk in the park as they chased down the target of 203 set up by the Bangladeshi team with much ease.
Abid Ali and Abdullah Shafique, the two openers played a great role in the victory as they did not give even a window of opportunity for the Bangladeshi bowlers to make inroads. Taking a leaf out of their first innings partnership of 146, the duo stitched together 151 this time around. They remained unbeaten on the fourth day, making the fifth day just a formality as only 93 runs were required for the win.
Bangladesh, on the other end, might have harboured hopes of getting back into the game on the last day with their spin duo of Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Taijul Islam. However, it took too late for them to come to action and even as Mehidy broke the opening partnership by removing Shafique for 73. Tailjul also removed Abid for 91, but by that time Pakistan required only 31 runs to win.
Skipper Babar Azam and senior Azhar Ali made sure that the target was reached without any further breaches.
Earlier Bangladesh, even after claiming 44 runs lead in the first innings courtesy of Islam’s brilliant 7-116 spell, wasn’t able to capitalise on it and could only make 157 in their second innings. Even getting to that would have been difficult if it wasn’t for the half-century from Liton Das as the rest of the batters literally threw their wickets away.
Courtesy of this win, the Pakistani team moved to second position in the Points Table of the World Test Championship 2021-23. They have 66.66 Percentage of Points courtesy of two wins from three completed games. Sri Lanka lead the table with one win from one match.