Australia Cruise to Victory

Australia have defeated Bangladesh by an innings in the First Test match at Marrara Oval, despite a spirited display by the visitors.

Resuming Day 3 at 1/70, Hannan Sarkar and Habibul Bashar moved the score to 89 and their partnership to 81 before Sarkar was caught behind by Adam Gilchrist off Jason Gillespie after making 35.

Mohammad Ashraful, while impressive in the first innings made just 7 before he fell victim to a Brett Lee thunderbolt, handing Gilchrist his second catch and leaving the visitors at 3/112, comfortably clear of their first innings 97.

Next over Habibul was comprehensively bowled by a Stuart MacGill wrong-un, giving the leg spinner the first of his 5 wickets.

Habibul became the first Bangladeshi to score a half century against Australia, dismissed for 54.

Alok Kapali then completed a pair, this time trapped LBW to MacGill. Khaled Mashud soon followed after his edge found the safe hands of Gilchrist behind the wicket.

Captain Khaled Mahmud then made 5 before his leg stump was clipped by a Jason Gillespie delivery to complete the middle-order collapse and leave Bangladesh at 7/143.

Tail enders Tapash Baisya (4) and Mashrafe Bin Mortaza (15) clubbed some handy tail end runs to creep the visitors past 150 before Tapash was LBW to MacGill and Mortaza was run out by a Darren Lehmann direct hit.

Al Sahariar's solid resistance came to an end, as did the Bangladeshi cause when he became MacGill's 5th victim of the innings and 7th of the match after making 36.

For Australia, MacGill finished with the figures of 13.1-1-65-5, his 7th five-wicket haul in the Test arena. Jason Gillespie took 2/48, Glenn McGrath 1/25 and Brett Lee 1/34.

Scores

Bangladesh 97 (Mohammad Ashraful 23, G McGrath 3/20, B Lee 3/23)

Australia 7 dec. 407 (D Lehmann 110, S Waugh 100*, J Langer 71, A Gilchrist 43, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza 3/73)

Bangladesh 178 (Habibul Bashar 53, S MacGill 5/65)

Australia won by an innings and 132 runs.

Cricket Web Player-of-the-Match: Darren Lehmann.

Australia leads the 2 Test series 1-0.

Posted by Andre