By Gus "Walk-Off" Fields
Two days. That's all it took.
Mitchell Starc took 10 wickets in the match as Australia thrashed Bangladesh by an innings and 51 runs in the second Test, bowling the visitors out for 64 in their first innings and 95 in their second. The result squared the series after Australia had dropped the opener, and it did so with time to spare — the match finished inside two days.
There's no dressing up a scoreline like that. Sixty-four all out is the kind of number that gets written on a lineup card and stared at for years. Ninety-five isn't much better. Starc, the veteran left-armer who has spent a decade making batters flinch at the top of his mark, did what he's always done best: hit the top of off stump and let the scoreboard do the talking.
For Bangladesh, it's a hard one to swallow — a team that had pushed Australia in the first Test now on the wrong end of a beating that barely lasted two sessions a day. For Australia, it's a reminder that on their day, with the ball doing what Starc asks of it, few sides in world cricket can live with them.
The series ends drawn at one apiece, but nobody watching the second Test will remember it as a contest. They'll remember the count of wickets next to Starc's name, and a Bangladesh innings that came and went almost before the tea break.
Final score's the last thing that mattered here — except this time, it was the only thing that mattered, and it wasn't close.
— Compiled from reporting by BBC Sport and Al Jazeera.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."