Bangladesh cricketers need to hunt and groom a pace-bowling pair for their success in Test as they have to play Test on a regular basis (home and away) after the introduction of the World Test Championship (WTC).

International Cricket Council (ICC), the world cricket apex body, embarked on the new mechanism in 2019 consulting with its members after discussions for the long haul.

It will be an eight-year cycle; the first phase of the mechanism will be a four-year spell started in 2019 and will end in 2023. Bangladesh will play 14 Tests in the first-phase cycle as well. They, meanwhile, played three Tests, two of which against India in 2019 and one against Pakistan in 2020. They were scheduled to play another one against Pakistan but it has been suspended due to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.

Bangladesh have a Three-match Test Series in Sri Lanka in between October-November, the Tests, which are part of the WTC after the series in India (2019) and Pakistan (2020). Even though it has been two decades in Test cricket, Tigers have not produced any effective pace-bowling pair yet.

Recently England’s glorious pace pair — James Anderson and Stuart Broad — has set a rare milestone to enter 500-Test wicket milestone.

There is no question to be raised on such a pace pair in Bangladesh but we can look back to get some consolations. We can spell out at least two pace pairs who had the potential to serve the country for a longer period.

Mashrafe Bin Mortaza-Taposh Boisha, who took 36 wickets off 21 Tests and Mashrafe-Shahadat Hossain Rajib could be the real pace duo in Bangladesh. Habibul Hashar, the former captain and current BCB selector, pronounced the name of pace pair – Masharfe and Taposh Boisha, who was very much effective with the old ball.  

Former cricketers praised these two pace pairs and referred to them as the most successful pace bowlers in Bangladesh cricket folklore.

Mashrafe (78 wickets off 36 Tests) and Shahadat (72 wickets off 38 Tests) played 74 Tests and claimed 150 wickets together. On the other hand, Mashrafe and Taposh scalped 114 wickets while playing only 57 Tests for Bangladesh before their international retirement.

It’s very much tough to find any potential pair after the previous couple of pace bowling pairs. Pacer Rubel Hossain, who was the hero of many winning matches for Tigers in limited-overs cricket, picked up 36 wickets while playing 27 Tests that portraits a shaky and poor picture as well.  

However, 2Taposh points his finger at the cricket culture of the country behind the reason. “We’ll not get pace-friendly wickets in domestic cricket. We erect spinning tracks to grip the throat of our oppositions on home ground for which we’ll field more spinners in the games. Again, we’ll not pick any pacer in case of thinking to play an additional batsman in the playing XI. How is it possible to produce pacers after doing such things repeatedly?” said Boisha, who works with a cricket academy in New Jersey in the United States of America (USA).

Citing an example of his last New Zealand tour in cricket career, Bashar said, “I went to New Zealand after playing four First Class Cricket matches. I didn’t have to face and play pace bowling more than 20 overs during those four matches. That was my preparation to address the pace attack in New Zealand.”

The long spell and preparations for a long time in Test cricket is a must for the pace bowlers but Bangladeshi pacers usually become deprived of such pace-friendly pitch. Such an adverse situation affects the pacers in domestic cricket for which the potential pace bowlers are not produced and don’t sustain even if they are groomed.

“We’re talking about the fitness and form of the pace bowlers. We’ll do better in Test if we’d have proper habituation to bowl 15-20 overs in domestic first-class cricket. But the domestic clubs heavily depend on spinners. Mashrafe has to bowl a good number of overs in overseas conditions without any effective preparations. I think there was an effect of it on his round-the-year injuries," he said.

Mashrafe’s Test career was finished in 2009 due to his recurring injury and Shahadat had also the same problem but indiscipline in the latter’s lifestyle was equally responsible for the end of his overall cricket career. No pace pair came to the national team after Mashrash-Taposh and Mashrafe-Shahadat to rejuvenate the hopes for the Tigers’ growing tent. Despite all these, Bashar hopes to see some changes in the current Bangladesh team.

“Let not the failures of the far past shape up our future. Many things have been changed for the last two-three years in Bangladesh cricket. The BCB is at least trying to build pace-friendly wickets in domestic cricket. Most of the teams picked three pacers to play for them. We have to wait to beget the reward,” he said.