7 pacers in a 24-men squad. If we add 3 more from the Test squad, it rises to 10. With the West Indies series looming, the first day of the national team's preparation camp at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur became a pace bowling fest. After a long break, even the experienced Tigers’ batsmen struggled to play their team’s fast bowlers in the first day’s practice session.
One of the promises made by coach Russell Domingo after taking charge of the Bangladesh team was to lengthen the line of pace bowlers, where there would be healthy competition. It was as if the same competition was seen on the indoor net on Sunday.
Left-arm pacers Shoriful Islam and Hasan Mahmud, who were called up to the national team for the first time, competed with Mustafizur Rahman, Rubel Hossain, Al Amin Hossain, Taskin Ahmed and Mohammad Saifuddin.
The two youngsters Shoriful and Hasan have attracted more attention. Shoriful bowled 7 overs in the beginning and caused problems for the top order batsmen with his fiery speed and bounce. Nazmul Hossain, Liton Das and Tamim Iqbal faced Shoriful’s barrage of pace bowling. The young bowler was a little too aggressive against Tamim. The ODI captain was dismissed twice by him. Shoriful is bowling for the first time in the net of the national team but the way he wreaked havoc in the training session caught everyone’s eyes.
Then youngster Hasan grabbed the bowl. He bowled to Mushfiqur, the best batsman in the country in terms of technique. However, he too struggled infront of Hasan’s fiery pace. Mushfiqur was repeatedly defeated in front of Hasan’s speed and got out twice. Shakib also had to come to the crease to face the same test. Hasan bowled seven overs and dismissed him once.
