Ricky Ponting’s “He made my job easy,” is probably the understatement of the year, when juxtaposed with the innings that Shane Watson played against Bangladesh in the second game of the three-match series at Dhaka. That Australia clinched the series was not surprising, but that Watson went on to get 185 out of the 230 needed for the win was a stunning effort to say the least. 
The target of 230 could have been a tricky one. Especially give that the pitch was a slow one and with the ball losing its shine, did make stroke-play difficult. Or so one thought. Because when Watson batted, there wasn’t a chance in the world that one would think that the track was anything but a flat-batting paradise.
Watson began with a four off the first legal ball that he faced, and followed it up with another couple of them in the same over. There would be 12 more such boundaries in his innings but more importantly, he hit 15 sixes to not only smash the record for the most sixes in an innings but also for the most number of runs in boundaries in a game by a proverbial mile.
Watson’s half century came in the seventh over of the innings, by which time the Aussies had got only 58 on the board. The century came off 69 deliveries but by then the result of the game was not in doubt. By then, in Watson’s own words, the batsman had also begun to tire and instead of taking the pain of running between the wickets, he started hitting them out of the ground. The next 85 runs took only 27 balls and the whirlwind remained unconquered, ending only when the target was achieved.
Watson remained unbeaten on 185 off 96 deliveries, making it the highest score by an Australian in this format of the game and the Bangladeshis were snuffed out in the 26th over of the game.
And yes, it had made things very, very easy for not only the former captain but also the Australian side.
Earlier, Bangladesh had overcome a rather sluggish start to make 229 thanks to a gritty unbeaten 81 by Mushfiqur Rahim. At one stage, it looked like the Bangladeshi side would struggle to get to even 200, especially after the opening batsman Imrul Kayes made five off 41 balls.
Mitchell Johnson picked up three wickets to restrict the side in the innings.