Tiger, Tiger burning bright

PL frames the fearful asymmetry

(Australia 10-198, Bangladesh 6-351, lead by 153 runs)

“I was trying to play normal cricket shots and keep calm myself. I wasn't trying too much. I just played the ball."

Thus spoke Tanzid Hasan, the wet-behind-the-ears opener who, in just his second Test, became the only Bangladesh batter to score a Test match century in Australia.

From the mouth of (relative) babes …

The scale of his achievement is enormous. He’d made a duck in the first innings of the tour match at the same ground a week before. He’d been granted a life before getting off the mark by Nathan Lyon, gave another tough chance off the spinner that was not pouched, but rarely looked troubled. Or hurried.

He'd played just one Test match before this one.

Just one Bangladeshi (Shahriar Nafees 138, Fatullah 2006) had scored a Test century against Australia before this one.

He’d risked the wrath of his father as a child to pursue the game.

He attended to the basics of batting over five hours at the crease and was duly rewarded. It is fair to wonder if, at any time in a career that spans just 25 first-class games and a solitary Test before this one, he ever spent so long at the crease.