Shahriar Hossain, nicknamed Bidyut (Lightning, Electricity) is back with a bang. He has scored an unbeaten century of 176 against Defense Housing Authority, known to be the weakest team of the tournament.
For his massive innings, Bangladesh 'A' team has now scored exactly 300 runs for the loss of 4 wickets. The first headline that came into my mind was "Meet the Bangladeshi version of Brian Lara". Then the inevitable thought came in - what if Shahriar cannot get his double-century, and what's more, what if he scores only in single figures in the next few matches that he plays?
So I guess, from now on, his next targets should be consistency and secondly individual landmarks and show us that there is nothing to worry about.
In the one day match, he has shown that he is the best one day player around for Bangladesh in terms of building an innings, and in start of the four-day matches, he has also shown to be a player who wants to build an innings.
We have missed him. Although it was more his illustrious opening partner who took all the limelights by scoring the maiden and thus far, the only ODI century for Bangladesh, but Shahriar Hossain is reminding us through his innings against DHA for BD 'A' that it was he, who came only 5 runs short of an ODI century before anyone else from Bangladesh.
In the beginning, his International career had been going up and down, but when he was settled, he was certainly one of the youngsters who had a permanent position in the Bangladesh national team. He was one among the few youngsters in the side during the world cup 1999 upon whom we could look and declare that he is one of our future stars.
But since then, he had faced some personal family problems and lost his place in the side for not concentrating properly on cricket. The last International match that he played for Bangladesh was in the inaugural test match against India.
His physical fitness was one of the main causes for him not to be in the national team earlier this year once he started concentrating on cricket properly, but now he has got past all those and back into the national folds with some authority. He is certainly playing some big knocks to at least give the selectors' some thoughts of taking him back into the national team.
For those people who has not watched him bat much, he is our best player against Kenya, and the only batsman who has two consecutive centuries against a visitng team - MCC. It was partly for him that Bangladesh was doing well in the longer version first class and non-first class matches just before attaining the Test Status.
He may not be as talented as Al Shahriar and score fifties or hundreds against teams such as South Africa and Australia on their home-grounds, but I can assure you, as one of his old fans that he will give you a sense of stability in the opening position. All he needs, is some time to settle down once getting into the national team.