Shakib fit for 2nd Test, Naim gets maiden call up

Bangladesh's Test loss in Chattogram was followed by good news after Shakib Al Hasan was ruled fit for the second Test against Pakistan starting December 4. Shakib missed the first Test, as well as the T20I series against Pakistan and the last couple of matches in the T20 World Cup due to a hamstring injury.

Shakib passed a fitness test in Dhaka on Monday, which brought him back into a team that badly needs his contribution. Fast bowler Taskin Ahmed has also returned to the side, while Mohammad Naim, the T20 specialist, makes his first appearance in the Test squad. Taskin had hurt his finger during the third T20I against Pakistan on November 22, which had ruled him out of the first Test. Naim is the standout call-up in the squad. The 22-year-old has played 32 T20Is and two ODIs. He played the last of his six first-class matches in February 2020. Naim averages 16.63 in the format, and has scored only one half-century. The team management had already picked fast bowlers Khaled Ahmed and Shohidul Islam for the Chattogram Test. The new inclusions make it a 20-man squad for the Dhaka Test, which is unusual for a home game.

Bangladesh batters bloom on better pitch, but questions remain

Bangladesh's batters might be looking for ways to transfer the Chattogram pitch back to Mirpur, the venue of the second Test. The highway between the two is great these days. There is also a river cargo route. Of course, the bowlers wouldn't necessarily help out in the shipping process, but at a time of low confidence in the team, the pitch for the first Test against Pakistan came as a breath of fresh air for the home side. That said, despite a pitch that had more runs in it, Bangladesh didn't have a lot of batters stepping up. Only Liton Das and Mushfiqur Rahim made runs in both innings, while Yasir Ali started well in the second innings before his concussion blow. The top order collapsed twice, including captain Mominul Haque, a Chattogram giant. It cost them the Test match, but after more than four months of a batting drought, which included a period when they didn't score a half-century or put together a 50-run stand for four weeks, Chattogram gave the batters some relief.

Bangladesh is one of the few cricket teams that consistently ends up playing in bowling-friendly conditions both at home and abroad. When they travel, they are naturally enough presented with green-tinged and pacy pitches where feasible. Since 2016, their home strategy, particularly in Mirpur, has been to aid the spinners. It has backfired as often as it has worked, since the Bangladesh batters themselves struggle on these pitches. Mominul said that he preferred the kind of pitch they got at Chattogram, but that Bangladesh's fast bowlers needed to become more skilful to bowl on these surfaces. "I prefer this type of wicket," Mominul said. "It was totally flat. It was good for batting. But of course, it was tough for the pace bowlers. I think they need to know how to bowl on a flat wicket. I think the coaches can also explain this better. It is different bowling at home compared to overseas conditions. Our fast bowlers have to play a lot of four-day matches. "This wasn't a spin wicket. It was a flat wicket. In a spin wicket, the ball turns from the third or fourth day. At least four or five balls turn on a spin wicket. Here one or two balls were turning."

Coach Russell Domingo had said on Tuesday that Bangladesh missed a trick on this pitch by not getting a bigger score in the second innings. "I think this has been a really good wicket," Domingo said. "We let ourselves down in the second innings. A score around 250-280 would have put us in a great position. I think we play really good Test cricket when we have been on top of the game. I keep telling my coaches [in the support staff] that Bangladesh is in a very difficult situation. When we play on good wickets, we might not have the firepower to bowl sides out, like Pakistan might have. When we play on wickets that spin, we definitely have the firepower to bowl sides out but then our batsmen can be challenged as well. If you want to develop confidence in our batting line-up, you have to get our batting numbers up. It is a tough situation. Bangladesh seamers struggle historically on good wickets. Our batters seem to struggle on spin wickets."