Australia crush Bangladesh inside five days

As expected, Bangladesh lost to Australia, but the winning margin was three wickets, shortly after lunch on day five. But the result didn't come as easily as Ponting & co. would have expected. For the first three days, Bangladesh dominated completely - more so on days one and two. A huge upset was on the cards until Bangladesh decided not to improve upon their second innings performance record and were shut out for a paltry 148 runs after managing a lead of 158 runs.

They still had a good 306 runs to defend, but it was always going to be tough to come back against Australia once they were let off the hook. Rafique, probably the best left arm spinner in the world today (with due apologies to the King of Spain), bowled his heart out and caused a scare in the Aussie camp until Ponting settled down to score his 31st Test hundred and save his team. He obviously also avoided having to bear the ignominy of being the first Australian skipper to lose a Test to Bangladesh, though he did lose an ODI to Bangladesh. As it is, he also was the first Australian captain to lose the Ashes since 1987.

Ricky Ponting now has a century against all test teams, assuming of course that the ICC XI doesn't really count. Ponting's Indian twin Rahul Dravid however has a century in each test nation as well!

Update: Gilchrist's century in Australia's first innings meant that he beat Ponting to the milestone.