“Uske saath mera relationship bahut purana hai…” (We go back a long way), said Hannan Sarkar, the delighted U-19 Bangladesh head coach, about Tanzid Hasan Tamim, who scored 101 in the first innings against Australia in Darwin, playing a pivotal part in Bangladesh’s historic win on Sunday.
Tanzid’s compact technique, coupled with playing the ball late, worked wonderfully well against the Aussie pace trio and Nathan Lyon. One standout shot of his innings came when he was on 63 and square-drove Pat Cummins for a boundary. It was a shot from a batter who was in control and in sync with the pace and bounce from the surface. He got on top of the delivery and used the pace to direct the ball. His century was filled with these delightful strokes throughout.
Sarkar has been watching Tanzid for the last 15 years and working on his game. “He has a strong technique for Test cricket,” he told The Indian Express.
Although it is only his second Test match, Sarkar believes his success stems from five years of playing international white-ball cricket, which has given him huge confidence.
“When we travel to Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Zimbabwe, we have to leave the ball well outside the off-stump, and that is Tanzid’s strength; whenever he had the ball there for him to play his shots, he took it,” Sarkar decoded.
Tanzid averages 40.06 in first-class cricket. Sarkar said that Tanzid had taken to the red-ball format like duck to water and could bat for long periods to tire the bowlers.
Bangladesh has made structural changes in its domestic cricket in recent years, steadily improving the nation’s red-ball ecosystem.
“For the last 4-5 years, we have used the Dukes ball with the pace bowlers. The batsmen have faced tough times in first-class cricket…so, there has been improvement. That’s the reason why we are playing well when we go to places like New Zealand and Australia.”
“Earlier, the grass on our pitches was not that good; it wasn’t compact; there used to be gaps, but now we are getting consistent grass on the wicket,” Sarkar added.
Bowling on good, bouncy pitches with the Dukes ball has helped them produce new bowling talent in recent times. Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud and Ebadot Hossain, who played at Darwin, kept the Australian batters in check throughout the game with their pinpoint precision across different spells.
Hasan was the star with the ball, picking up nine wickets in the game. “When the pitches were not as good, we used a lot of spinners, but now with these wickets, faster bowlers are bowling 15-20 overs a day, and that was what the making of Hasan was,” observed Sarkar.
Travis Head chopped the ball onto the stumps, and it was that in-between length from Hasan that made the difference; the batter did not do either go forward or backwards.
“He is very different from the others; he hits the pitch hard. He has also been a part of County Cricket recently, and that has boosted his confidence…He uses his wrist very well, and that is what makes him very threatening to face,” Sarkar said.
Sarkar was the opener of the Bangladeshi team which last toured Australia in 2003 and got whitewashed. “We were given Test status in 2000. So, it was a very early stage for our Test cricket. At that time, our thinking was that if we played with Australia for 3-4 days, that would be a big achievement,” Sarkar laughed.
“But now, the change I see is that we play to win against any team. We actually believe that we can win and perform well,” Sarkar said proudly.
“Even in domestic cricket in my time, we used to see players score a maximum of 3-4 centuries in an entire domestic season. But now that number has gone up drastically, and you see centuries and double centuries very frequently,” Sarkar said.
This decade has seen some significant historical results for Bangladesh. In 2022, they beat New Zealand for the first time in their history in Mount Maunganui and in 2024 they whitewashed Pakistan in their backyard.
Sarkar said that wins like these could inspire the entire cricketing ecosystem in the country to stay motivated and improve their performances. “This is a very good boost-up. When the top team achieves a good result, it boosts the rest of our system. It inspires them to do well, and targets also increase.”
Despite Sunday’s win, however, Sarkar concluded by sounding a note of caution, stating that the next challenge for the board and the players was to consistently deliver results of this magnitude to maintain that high bar going forward.
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