Sylhet, May 20 (IANS) Pakistan captain Shan Masood admitted that his side paid the price for repeated mistakes after Bangladesh completed a historic 2-0 Test series sweep with a 78-run victory in the second Test at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium on Wednesday.

Pakistan were bowled out for 358 while chasing a daunting target of 437 on the final day despite a strong fight from Mohammad Rizwan, who scored 94, and Salman Agha, who made 71. Spinner Taijul Islam starred with a match-winning spell of 6-120 to seal Bangladesh’s first-ever home Test series win over Pakistan.

Reflecting on the defeat, Masood said Pakistan had failed to capitalise on key moments across the match and stressed that Test cricket leaves no room for errors.

“Test cricket punishes every mistake you make. It’s unforgiving, and Test cricket is always played by the best of the best. You’re not going to get any easy games, and you really have to grind results out,” Masood said after the match.

The Pakistan skipper felt his team had opportunities to take control of the game but failed to finish strongly in crucial phases.

“We’ve put ourselves into positions. I can only count a couple of Test matches where we’ve been completely outplayed, but in every other Test match we’ve been in positions where we didn’t finish well, either with the ball or in the field. That’s something you have to do consistently over five days, and that’s the learning this side really needs to take,” he said.

Masood also pointed to Bangladesh’s recovery in the first innings as one of the turning points of the match. Bangladesh were struggling at 116 /6 before recovering to post 278, thanks to lower-order contributions and a century from Litton Das.

“Especially when they were 116 for 6, the last four wickets ended up scoring a lot of runs. We missed opportunities, and from there, even with the batting, when we got to 142 for 4, and there were two set batsmen in, in Test cricket, you have to go big,” Masood added.

Bangladesh later took a 46-run first-innings lead after bowling Pakistan out for 232 and strengthened their position further with 390 in the second innings, powered by Mushfiqur Rahim’s superb 137.

The victory marked Bangladesh’s fourth consecutive Test win over Pakistan and helped them climb above India to fifth place in the ICC World Test Championship standings.

–IANS

sds/bc