They knew the name Bangladesh, of course. But for many of them, it had long been little more than a distant, impoverished country associated with hardship and problems. In this age of populism, some may even see people from countries like Bangladesh as outsiders who come to take away their jobs.
People like Arif—hardworking, skilled and friendly—gradually challenge such stereotypes. But something happened on Sunday that worked almost like magic.
Australians, passionate about sport and fiercely proud of their national teams, suddenly realised that Bangladesh had beaten Australia in a Test match. On Australian soil, Bangladesh had defeated one of the world's strongest teams after dominating them for four days. It was a victory by a team that, until recently, was barely taken seriously in Australia's cricketing imagination.
The clearest evidence of that disregard was the fact that Bangladesh had to wait 23 years to be invited back to Australia. Even then, the series was played at relatively obscure venues such as Darwin and Mackay, outside Australia's traditional cricketing centres. It was also scheduled during the off-season. The series struggled to attract major sponsorship, and tickets for the fourth day in the most expensive section of the ground had not even been put on sale because the assumption was that the match would be over within three days.
Australia did field its strongest available side. Yet the team's body language made the lack of respect for the opposition obvious. Captain Pat Cummins sounded dismissive in his pre-match comments. Veteran paceman Josh Hazlewood said Australia had to prepare differently because they did not have enough footage of Bangladesh.
In an age of advanced technology, some might reasonably interpret that as another indication that Australia simply had not thought very much about Bangladesh.
The media added fuel to the fire. Predictions that the Test would be over within two days and that Bangladesh would suffer a humiliating defeat were widespread. Bangladesh had lost to Zimbabwe only a month earlier and had been bowled out for 54 in a warm-up match in Australia, so the pessimism was not entirely without reason.
But Bangladesh had been given far less respect than it deserved as a Test opponent.
Australia had simply taken them too lightly.
As Bangladesh began to dominate from the very start, even the normally composed and highly professional Australians appeared increasingly unsettled. Mitchell Starc, one of the most experienced players in world cricket, lost his temper and sledged Mehidy Hasan Miraz.
Steve Smith, one of the greatest catchers in the history of the game, dropped several relatively straightforward chances. After dropping Taskin Ahmed's catch near the boundary, Smith stood with his head bowed, looking like a man genuinely struggling to process what was happening.
One of the defining qualities of a player like Smith is his trademark Australian resilience. Yet during Australia's second innings, he looked so rattled that he asked for a review before the umpire had even raised his finger. He seemed, for a moment, more like an anxious teenager than one of the world's finest batsmen.
Then came Travis Head's dismissal.
After being bowled, one of the most aggressive batsmen in world cricket simply stood still in disbelief. He picked up the bails that had been knocked off and placed them back on the stumps, remaining frozen for a moment.
The commentators said they had rarely seen anything quite like it.
And those same commentators, after the match, were seen shaking hands with the Bangladeshi players and drawing attention to the difference in their physical stature. Look at the difference in height, they remarked. These smaller Bangladeshi players had come to Australia and knocked them off their feet.
They had lifted their own country's reputation to new heights.
That was exactly what thousands of expatriate Bangladeshis like Arif were feeling.
In Beyond a Boundary, his magnum opus on cricket and society, CLR James demonstrated how sporting success could transform the standing of Black people in the Caribbean and across the wider world.
In England, victories by West Indian teams once brought waves of Black supporters into the streets—people wearing bell-bottom trousers and celebrating throughout the day. The impact extended far beyond the cricket ground.
People who had once been treated as slaves were discovering, through sporting achievement, that their dignity and worth as human beings were no less than anyone else's.
In the modern world, international sporting success can provide a form of recognition that is extraordinarily difficult to achieve through other means. Sport can function as soft power. It can reshape perceptions of a country and its people.
That is one reason even a figure such as Donald Trump, despite having little interest in understanding football itself, has shown enormous enthusiasm for hosting the FIFA World Cup in the United States.
Academic research has even found that Mohamed Salah's success at Liverpool has played a significant role in reducing Islamophobia in Britain—an impact that would have been extremely difficult to achieve through conventional political or social campaigns alone.
Football has given countries such as Argentina and Brazil a distinct kind of global prestige.
Brazil provides an especially useful example for understanding the deeper mechanics behind this phenomenon.
There is a popular romantic narrative that Brazil's footballing greatness emerged naturally from the combination of innate talent and poverty—that the boys of the country's favelas simply possessed something magical.
The reality is far more complicated.
The Brazilian team that went to the 1958 World Cup was backed by careful planning and systematic preparation. Officials travelled to Sweden well in advance, studied the conditions on the ground and planned meticulously so that the players would have to travel as little as possible during the tournament, while also ensuring comfortable accommodation and adequate preparation facilities.
The attention to detail went much further. Players' diets were carefully planned. Their health, training, personal lives and even sexual behaviour were subjected to close supervision.
The story actually began in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Brazil and other Latin American countries, having moved away from colonial economic structures, began encouraging domestic industries. Employment expanded, wages increased and the living standards and purchasing power of parts of the working class improved. Business and commerce grew, creating a new educated middle class.
As the economy expanded, investment in football infrastructure and other areas also increased. This attracted talented young people from poorer communities.
At the same time, mass communication—particularly radio—was developing rapidly. Football became a vehicle for collective aspiration and a central part of the national imagination.
In other words, Brazil's footballing rise was not simply the product of "natural talent."
It was the result of planning, investment, incentives, systematic preparation and the use of sporting success as a tool for nation-building.
These factors are crucial to success in modern sport, particularly in team sports.
There is no shortcut.
Sporting success can reflect the capacity of a nation to become disciplined, organised and successful in other areas as well. When people are given opportunity, infrastructure and the right environment, the same determination that produces excellence on the sporting field can produce excellence elsewhere.
Bangladesh has just demonstrated that possibility.
The victory in Darwin did not come out of nowhere.
Over the past several years, Bangladesh has invested in building a stronger pace-bowling attack. Through planning, persistent development and years of hard work, a new generation of fast bowlers has emerged.
Just as importantly, these players have developed mental strength.
Bangladesh's smaller-built cricketers can now look Mitchell Starc and other world-class players in the eye and answer them on the field.
That confidence is perhaps the most important achievement of all.
And confidence spreads.
A victory like this, on foreign soil, gives thousands of Bangladeshis living abroad a powerful sense that we are not inferior to anyone. That with planning, hard work and determination, we too can compete with the best in the world—and beat them.
Extreme nationalism creates division and fuels populism. But the healthier competition in the modern world should resemble the spirit of sport.
We should compete to become the best version of ourselves without humiliating others.
We should win—and then shake hands.
For the millions of Bangladeshis living in Australia and around the world, this victory will be deeply energising. It offers inspiration to compete at the highest level and the confidence to believe that we belong there.
We can do it.
We can beat anyone.
What we need is sound planning, hard work and determination.
We do not participate merely to make up the numbers.
We participate to win.
That belief, born on the cricket field, can spread far beyond sport—and become part of how we see ourselves as a nation.
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