Display of pace-bowlers an encouraging statement of intent from Bangladesh

Reflecting on Bangladesh's Cricket World Cup victory over Afghanistan, Osman Samiuddin believes the performance of their fast bowlers is an encouraging statement of intent.

Rubel Hossain, right, celebrates taking the wicket of Afsar Zazai Bangladesh's World Cup win over Afghanistan. Peter Parks / AFP

To Bangladesh we must give thanks not only for keeping the left-arm spinner alive, but for producing him in such plentiful supply, in so many wonderful guises.

It is a woefully unappreciated genre and part of the appeal in watching Bangladesh over the years has been to study an army of left-arm spinners in action.

All the same, a little pace never hurt anyone did it?

Left-arm spinners are great and Bangladesh’s finest successes have invariably had one or the other at their core. But to win matches consistently, home and away, an army of them can seem powdery and inadequate.

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Having no one other than the indefatigable but fragile pace bowler Mashrafe Mortaza, it could be argued, has held them back more than many other reasons.

So it was bracing to see them open their World Cup with a thumping win based around their pace bowlers. Mortaza and Rubel Hossain undid Afghanistan in the first three overs and the pair, with Taskin Ahmed, shared five wickets among them.

For a side such as Afghanistan, making their World Cup debut no less, the target was always going to be stiff. Maybe left-arm spin alone would have been enough. But the intent behind Bangladesh’s faster bowlers was significant, a statement-making kind of intent.

So often they have looked cowed on the biggest stage and here they were doing the bullying. It was a glimpse of what could be but the day Bangladesh unearth their first, truly great, truly quick fast bowler, their fortunes will turn.

People will be tempted to say it is only Afghanistan and that Bangladesh, with their experience alone, should win these games.

But the two already share a peculiar frictional rivalry. Into this bilateral prism have Afghanistan strutted, the exalted upstarts, a little uncaring of the very status of Bangladesh as a struggling member of the elite.

As one of two exalted Associates, the unsaid assumption in cricket has always been that Afghanistan and Ireland are better than – or at least the equals of – Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, the weakest full members.

When they played at the Asia Cup last year, the first ODI between the two, Afghanistan’s confidence pre-match was refreshing, but also eventually a little distasteful. They never said it but you could imagine them privately questioning Bangladesh’s right to be a full member.

Afghanistan won that game, memorably, too, and would probably have been pretty confident ahead of this rematch. In which case, a little comeuppance may prove no bad thing in the long run.

Afghanistan were good in patches with the ball but mostly abysmal with the bat. They look uncannily like an old raggedy facsimile of Pakistan, at times, especially when some batsmen are being a little too gung-ho, or a fast bowler too elemental, or a fielder too clownish.

Above all, they were reminded here of how far they still have to go, that no game will come easy at this level, not even against Bangladesh.

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