It is tempting to read too much into Bangladesh’s brave attempt at Sri Lanka’s target of 521 runs and falling short by just 107 runs, in the process posting one of the highest 4th innings score. But in fact, the effort actually hides some of Bangladesh’s problems.

Consider Ashraful who lead the chase with a century. This was the first time in 19 innings that he has passed 35 runs. Ashraful’s career has been entirely composed of long stretches of poor form and then a sparkling innings just when everything says he should be dropped. If he ever converted his potential into a run of good scores, Bangladesh would be making a match of more games.

Recently, we have seen many great 4th innings chases, some of them succeeding (such as India’s chase of England’s target and South Africa’s chase of Australia) and some failing, but still providing much excitement. A less recent example was Sri Lanka chasing Australia’s target of 514 and failing by just 97 runs, with Sangakkara hitting 192 and given out incorrectly by Rudi Koertzen. So what is going on here?

One reason is that teams are playing at a much faster pace, thus leaving a lot of time for the final innings. This mitigates the need for teams to take undue risks while chasing, while putting more pressue on the bowling team to both contain the runs and take wickets. In addition, the pitches are staying solid through the entire Test, thus making them less bowler-friendly.

This phenomenon is likely to weigh heavily on captains when their team is playing the third innings of the match. In the past, the game plan was to score faster to post a huge target. Now, this may have to change to: post high scores, but also waste time out in the middle before declaring. 

So watch out for next year. You may actually see some ridiculous targets being set next year, like score 500 to win in a single day.