Two months ago, on an oppressive overcast day in Mirpur, Tanzid Hasan and Najmul Hossain Shanto torched Australia's new-ball attack by sharing a 96-run stand off 91 balls that set the tone for an ODI series victory.
But Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were not there, with all three sitting on their couches in Sydney, resting after the IPL.
The default position in Australia was that those games and those results would have no bearing on the Test series in August. Let's see them do it against Australia's big three in Australian conditions.
Except, that ODI was played on a revamped Mirpur pitch, the curation of which was overseen by Australian Tony Hemming, the Bangladesh Cricket Board's head of turf management who had learnt his craft from the legendary Adelaide Oval curator Les Burdett. That Mirpur pitch had significant pace and bounce, with Nahid Rana taking 4 for 41 to steamroll Australia's reply.
Bangladesh had hired Hemming in August 2025 to overhaul their pitches from low and spin-friendly to something that would aid their talented fast-bowling group and help their batters compete better overseas.
The results are there for all to see in the first Test between Australia and Bangladesh in Darwin. The youngest fast bowler in the game, Hasan Mahmud, took a career-best 6 for 55 on day one. The youngest batter in the game, Tanzid, in just his second Test, made a stunning maiden century against Australia's vaunted attack boasting over 1600 Test wickets between them.
Shanto made a superb 84, sharing a 93-run stand with Tanzid on the back of a 102-run stand between the opener and Mominul Haque. All of that combined to put Bangladesh halfway towards the most famous victory in their cricket history, and leave Australia in the biggest hole they have seen in quite some time against an opposition they were expected to brush aside on home soil.
Australia's failure with the bat was unsurprising. Their failure to respond with the ball was a shock. Bangladesh had been bowled out twice for under 190 in their last Test, against Zimbabwe, and lost by an innings inside three days. They were all out for 54 to lose the tour match to lose by an innings last weekend, with Campbell Thompson, with just one first-class game behind him, taking 8 for 25.
Adding to the surprise of what Bangladesh achieved on day two of the first Test was the fact that Tanzid and Shanto's partnership was not a mirror image of their Mirpur mauling. Instead, that pair and Mominul did it completely differently, showcasing the type of adaptable Test-match batting Australia are crying out for.
Yes, they had the best of the batting conditions by some margin, but Australia's decision at the toss is nobody's fault but theirs. Bangladesh's batters were prepared to defend and leave far more often than their counterparts. Through 53 overs in each innings, Bangladesh's batters had left 21 more balls than their Australian counterparts, and played 39 more defensive strokes.
Bangladesh had some luck. Tanzid was dropped twice. Nathan Lyon's spill when he was on 0 proved extraordinarily costly. His second reprieve on 62 was a true slice of luck, when a thick edge off Lyon hit Alex Carey on the arm and Steven Smith nearly pulled off a stunner to his right despite having initially moved left.
Tanzid also played and missed more than any other batter in the game. But Shanto and Mominul played and missed fewer times than Smith had on day one, while Australia's great also nicked four balls that didn't go to hand.
The Bangladesh trio otherwise put on a masterclass of Test batting. They played the lines, used soft hands in defence, and left on length. But they didn't just sit in with no intent to score, like Marnus Labuschagne did on day one.
They picked off bad balls with controlled bat swings, punishing Australia's quicks when they strayed too wide or too straight. They attacked Lyon, taking him at over four runs an over with Shanto's skill off both feet leading the charge. Lyon did not bowl a maiden until his 23rd over.
They also took Australia's allrounders in Cameron Green and Beau Webster out of the attack. The pair bowled just 13 of the first 80 overs, with Cummins turning to Travis Head and Labuschagne before the second new ball. Green's lack of consistency was taxed without much risk; Webster's consistency was taxed with calculated risks as Tanzid skipped down to his predictable length twice to launch him down the ground.
It provided a noticeable contrast to Australia's batters on day one, all of whom bar Labuschagne fell with hard hands in trying to shift Bangladesh's accurate seamers off their lengths and lines.
Australia's bowlers, by contrast, were forced to adjust theirs by judicious shot selection, something they never had to do against England's Bazballers last summer. It was only the second time in four years a team had forced the quartet of Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood and Lyon to bowl at least 110 overs in an innings.
The flatness of the day two drop-in pitch and the softness of the ball also exposed the one weakness of Australia's ageing attack. Extracting something from nothing without any runs to defend, something the quartet and their back-ups had once made a calling card, is becoming harder with age.
Scoreboard pressure helped them on a flatter surface in Adelaide last summer, as well as England's desire to recklessly keep running towards the danger instead of letting it come to them.
Australia's quicks never really came at Bangladesh. They instead waited until the second new ball and found three outside edges when hard hands were used by a middle order that was exposed at the wrong time.
But even then, Mahmud played the longest innings of his first-class career, surviving 76 deliveries from No. 8 to help Bangladesh get to the close with a lead of 153 and four wickets still in hand.
Australia's day in the dirt was summed up by the last act when Green dropped a sitter from Mehidy Hasan Miraz in the gully off Labuschagne. An apt way to end a remarkable day when the visitors played liked the hosts and the hosts played like hapless visitors.