Looking ahead
F Waliullah

Bangladesh has played its maiden test match against South Africa - ranked number two test playing nation in the ICC Test Championship. In that test match, Bangladesh has shown a repeat act of losing a test match by an innings defeat; an innings and 107 runs to be exact.

Previously, Bangladesh's best away tour was against Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe where Bangladesh team has scored over 250 runs in 3 of Bangladesh's 4 test innings. As Zimbabwe is the ninth test playing nation - just one ahead of Bangladesh, so these were very predictable total considering the strength of the opposition compared to other test nations.

But after some very low scores in the one day international matches in ICC Champions Trophy, and some 150s in the one day series and 1st test innings against South Africa, Bangladesh team has managed to score a total exceeding two hundred and fifty runs, courtesy of long expected successes by the top and middle order batsman.

In a press briefing after the test match, Bangladesh captain, as well as one of the successful middle order batsman in that match, Khaled Mashud has told Reuters that the team is improving day by day and the confidence of te players is growing, and the signs are good for the team. He also added that they have picked a young squad for this tour, but that will help them in the future because some of these players will go on for 10 or 12 years.

In the present squad of Bangladesh, there were at least 4 players who are around twenty years old like Tushar Imran, Alok Kapali, Tapash Baisya, Talha Jubair, Monjurul Islam and Anwar Hossain Munir.

We must notice here that most of these youngsters are bowlers, to be specific, medium pacers. Among them, Monjurul Islam has already bowled most overs for any Bangladeshi bowler in the international arena by virtue of playing in more test matches than any other bowler consistently over a long period of time since his debut against Zimbabwe in the year 2001 (over 300 overs in test matches).

Tapash Baisya and Talha Jubair are young and energetic, but they are also very much prone to injuries.Tushar Imran is a seasoned in form batsman for now, who has recently scored handsomely especially in the subcontinent. Alok Kapali came in the side as a leg spinner allrounder, but he can become a proper middle order batsman in five years time. And Anwar Hossain Munir has impressed those who have seen him bowl in his lone debut one day international.

Other players are now in their mid-twenties, which makes most of them a potential Akram Khan and Aminul Islam of today after ten to tweleve years time. So, in order to really make the younger players good players after that ten year period, we have to change a lot of our policies that are currently existing.

For example, we must have some sort of a system in the near future in which potential pace bowlers like Talha Jubair and Tapash Baisya do not get too many injuries when we need them like Mashrafe Bin Murtoza and Mohammad Sharif - the two young emerging talents that we have who are suffering from a heavy dose of over-bowling and thus forcing them to stay off the field for a long time due to various kinds of injuries.

In the past, we lost pace bowlers like Saiful Islam and Shafiuddin Ahmed early because of injuries and their loss of form. Some sort of a recovery is already under process now to get back Hasibul Hussain who was our main spearhead in our new ball attack for a long time. Only time will tell if he is able to bowl at the same rythm that he used to before his injury as he is now chosen for the Bangladesh A team to play in the Challenge Trophy.

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