Australia vs Bangladesh

Good grief! The Australian tour really seems to be going off the rails. First they lost to England in a Twenty20 match, then they lost to Somerset and now they have lost to Bangladesh in a full ODI. Not only that, but the ranks are fracturing - Andrew Symonds was left out of the match because of a disciplinary issue. The Aussies initially tried to pretend this hadn't happened and that Symonds merely had a "niggle". Or the "flu". Or ummmm, which story did we agree on again guys?

Anyway. Back to the match. A match that will go down in history as one of the great upsets of all time. Against Somerset it was the bowlers who struggled, in this match it was the entire side. The batting was oddly subdued, with top scorer Damien Martyn hitting only two 4s in his 112 ball 77. The bowlers too struggled, with every bowler going for more than four an over. And some of the fielding was just downright atrocious. Jason Gillespie let a top edge slip through his fingers and over the boundary in the most ludicrously awkward manner.

The poor form of the Australians shouldn't distract from the achievement of the Bangladeshis. Mohammad Ashraful, player who at 20 has already seen more highs and lows than almost any other cricketer, was the hero but was ably supported by some consistent bowling and support at the crease from the likes of Javed Omar (who's 19 took up the first 21 overs), Habibul Bashar and Aftar Ahmed.

If you want to read more (and you should), try the Sydney Morning Herald, the Guardian, the BBC, the Hindu, Wisden, or the near incandescently excited front page of Dhaka' Daily Star.

Having read about the match, how about reading about some of the reactions. Try here. Here. And here. And then take time to reflect that all those articles come from the same newspaper.