Joel Davies waited 22 years for his cap and then made it count. The left-arm spinner marked his first Australia appearance with 3 for 17, setting up a 62-run win in the opening T20I in Chattogram. More striking, nine of Bangladesh’s ten wickets fell to slow bowling – a first for Australia in the format and the first time it has happened in Bangladesh.
Adam Zampa collected Player-of-the-Match honours with 3 for 18, yet it was Davies who provided the freshest storyline. He removed Parvez Hossain Emon and Abdul Gaffar Saqlain with well-flighted balls aimed towards the longer side of the ground.
“I think coming over here, I thought it might be spinning a little bit more than it actually did, but to still get enough out of the wicket,” Davies said. “It has been a childhood dream to play for Australia in any format. So to get that done today was a massive achievement for me.”
Asked about the plan, he credited captain Mitch Marsh. “I think here in Bangladesh the grounds are a fair bit smaller than in Australia, so if there were any parts of the ground that were slightly bigger, I had to use that to my advantage. With the wind going against the big boundary, it was Mitch [Marsh]’s idea to make me hit them to that big boundary and I think I got two wickets from that, so it was a nice plan by him.”
Bowling alongside Zampa felt, in Davies’ words, “pretty surreal. I think I’ve grown up just watching him play on TV, and now to be a team-mate with him was something I never thought I’d experience. But I think he’s so smart on the field and off the field.”
He then added: “He’s smart on the field and he would pick my brain to make sure that I had the right approach to how I wanted to get them out and how I wanted to build some pressure. So it was really nice having him by my side.”
Australia handed a debut to 30-year-old leg-spinner Nikhil Chaudhary too, and he struck with his ninth ball, Rishad Hossain skying to the deep. Matt Renshaw’s part-time off-spin, increasingly more ‘time’ than ‘part’, chipped in with 2 for 26, meaning the seamers barely had a say.
Bangladesh’s batting coach, Talha Jubair, accepted his side had walked into a tactical ambush. “I think they set the trap and we fell right into it. They were hoping for us to mis-hit some of the big shots. We were too dependent on boundaries. I think the batters will agree with me that we should have looked at building the innings. We could have built some small partnerships. We lost back-to-back wickets, so some partnerships could have changed the scenario.”
He went on: “We threw our wickets rather than take stock of the situation in the middle. A 40-run partnership would have helped us. We ended up playing one less over too. Our tail batted well with Mahedi [Hasan], who struck three fours in an over. Another genuine batter with him would have made their life difficult.”
Jubair was equally blunt on Renshaw’s success. “I think he is not much of an effective bowler, but still we are giving him wickets. I hope our batters can overcome this in the next match.”
Bangladesh will have to do exactly that on Friday, same ground, same start time. Australia, suddenly rich in spin options, have an early edge in the three-match series, yet the surface in Chattogram can change overnight. If it stays slow, Davies’ dream week might just continue.
