Bangladesh head coach Russell Domingo hinted premier allrounder and captain Shakib Al Hasan could continue his bowling sabbatical through the next Test against India, starting December 22.
Domingo suggested Shakib will continue his rehab from an injury that held him back as a left-arm spinner throughout the previous game in Chattogram and take the field purely as a specialist batter.
“He could play as a batter [only]. Obviously he didn’t bowl enough overs. He is still struggling with his shoulder and [ribcage] bruising. It left us with four bowlers – a big blow for us,”
the coach told the press after Bangladesh’s 188-run loss.
“Ebadot [Hossain] broke down [too], so we were stuck with three bowlers. It is very difficult to balance the side at the moment. I am not 100% sure if Shakib would be able to bowl. He is definitely available to play as a batter, which is an issue for us. We need an allrounder,”
he added.
Shakib was looking in his elements with the ball for good 12 overs on Day 1 in Chattogram when an injury on his shoulder cut short the left-arm spinner’s stint for the rest of the Test match. He only took part as a batter for the next four days of the encounter, making a fighting 86 in the final innings to delay the inevitable Indian victory in Dhaka.
The knock was one of the few bright spots for Bangladesh, with their skipper leading the battle from the front and pushing a consistently threatening Indian attack off their lines and lengths over 108 balls in an impressive innings that stretched Bangladesh’s second-innings to 324 after being dismissed for 150 only in the first half.
The resilience on display in the innings also belied talks around Shakib’s involvement as a player and skipper, and his overall commitment, towards Test match cricket. Amidst question marks raised on the player’s dedication to the format after regular tussles with BCB over his availability, such knocks reinforce the faith that Shakib very much retains his passion to wear the Test match whites and battle it out over five days.
“It is a tricky question. It is a good question,”
said Domingo in response to a question, whether Shakib’s laidback and unruffled outer demeanour can fuel misplaced judgements outside about his commitment to Test match cricket, having previously skipped assignments to take breaks to keep himself fresh for limited-overs cricket.
One of many reasons why his return to captaincy was doubted in multiple corners after the ouster of left-hand batter Mominul Haque from the helm of affairs following a sustained dip in his performances.
“He comes across as very laidback, but when he is in the contest, he has pride in performance. Looking from the outside, you may think, ‘Does he really care?’. But I know that he has a lot of pride in performances. He doesn’t want to be embarrassed out there. He is competing 100%,”
the head coach stressed.
Despite controversies, and doubts on his commitment raised from time to time, Shakib enters the Mirpur Test as inarguably Bangladesh’s greatest-ever cricketer in the format. The 35-year-old averages nearly 40 with the bat in hand after 64 Tests and 4,338 runs, apart from bagging his 225 scalps at 31.44 apiece.
When Shakib is around, Bangladesh have one of the world’s finest allround cricketers available to bat within their top 6 and that allows them to field an extra specialist batter to lengthen their vulnerable batting.
