The Rawalpindi Dawn: Reading the Tape of Bangladesh's First Test Win Over Pakistan

At 5:47 a.m. on the final morning in Rawalpindi, I sat in my Dhaka flat rewinding the same over seven times — Mehidy Hasan Miraz's 71st over of the fourth day, where the ball kept low twice in identical fashion. Forty hours into the tape, at hour thirty-nine, the tape finally blinked first. Bangladesh were about to beat Pakistan for the first time in 14 attempts. Mushfiqur Rahim's 191 off 341 balls was the anchor, but the real system was quieter: a fielding map that saved 2.1 runs per over, a pace attack of Hasan Mahmud, Taskin Ahmed and Nahid Rana bowling back-of-length lines, and Miraz exploiting the pitch's variable bounce. In the second Test, Bangladesh fell to 26/6 before Litton Das's 138 turned panic into pressure, and they chased 185 to seal the series 2-0. The contrarian read: the win came from discipline the scoreboard hides — DRS management, over rates, fielding. The blind spot remains the fragile top order that averages just 149 runs for the first five wickets across both Tests. The next test is India, on turning tracks in Chennai and Kanpur, where the Rawalpindi recipe may not travel. The team now knows how not to lose; learning how to win on other soil is the unfinished column.