Bangladesh players celebrate their maiden win against Australia in the shortest format of the game © AFP
Australia's struggle against spin transcended continents as they suffered their maiden T20I loss against Bangladesh. In the opening game of their first ever bilateral T20I series against Bangladesh, Australia came up with a fine bowling performance - led by Josh Hazlewood's three-wickete haul - to restrict the hosts to 131 for 7 at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka on Tuesday (August 3). However, their woes again spin, which was evident in the Caribbean, continued in Bangladesh as the batsmen struggled to comprehend the slow bowlers and the outcome of that was the visitors getting bowled out for 108.

What went wrong for Australia?

Their understanding of turn, or the lack of it. As early as the first ball of the chase, Alex Carey thought a Mahedi Hasan delivery was turning away from him and shaped up to play the ball through the off side. But the ball skidded on and shattered the stumps, leaving the batsman clueless. The other opener, Josh Philippe came down the track but a ball from Nasum that spun away sharply resulted in the batsman getting stumped. With Moises Henriques chopping on a Shakib Al Hasan delivery while attempting a sweep, Australia slipped to 11 for 3 in the third over, with Bangladesh armed with the knowledge of how to tame the visitors.

Hardly anything went Australia's way with the bat as there were some atypical dismissals as well. Matthew Wade looked to pull a Nasum delivery which would have been a huge wide down the leg side and ended up handing a catch to short fine. Ashton Agar went too deep in his crease and was out hit-wicket during a Nasum over, as the left-arm spinner bagged a couple of bonus wickets and also accounted for Mitchell Marsh to finish with a career-best 4 for 19.

Anything positive from their batting?

Marsh's batting, to an extent, was the lone positive as far as Australia's batting was concerned. Coming in with his team already in a lot of trouble, he tried to build a partnership with Wade to stem the rot. He struck four fours and a six during his stay and also looked to rotate the strike and keep the scorecard ticking along. Despite not being in complete control on occasions, he fought on and like his performances in the recent past, he showed that he could play a key role for the side in spin-friendly conditions expected during the T20 World Cup. His auditions aside, lack of support from the other end - with the second highest score being Starc's 13 - meant that Marsh's run-a-ball 45 came in a losing cause.

How did Bangladesh fare with the bat?

Not too well. They also struggled for momentum as they scored only 33 in the powerplay despite Mohammad Naim scoring a couple of sixes off Starc. Soumya Sarkar was cramped for room by Hazlewood and was too smart for his own good when he tried to create some. Naim's premeditated sweep of Zampa led to his wicket, while Mahmudullah and Shakib fell after watchful innings as Bangladesh only managed 104 for the loss of five wickets in 17 overs.

Who propelled them to 131?

Afif Hossain. While most of the batsmen before him got out trying to play across or force the pace, Afif concentrated on timing them properly as he struck a straight boundary off Hazlewood and one over covers off Starc. The No. 6 also played a clever reserve ramp off Starc anticipating the change of pace. Although he failed to keep out a yorker off the last ball - with Starc becoming the first Australian male cricketer with 50 T20I wickets - Afif's 17-ball 23 was instrumental in Bangladesh scoring 27 off the last three overs, which made a huge difference in the end.

Brief scores: Bangladesh 131/7 in 20 overs (Shakib Al Hasan 36, Mohammad Naim 30; Josh Hazlewood 3-24) beat Australia 108 in 20 overs (Mitchell Marsh 45; Nasum Ahmed 4-19, Mustafizur Rahman 2-16) by 23 runs.