The joy of Bangladesh beating Pakistan
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Niaz Ahmed came in to bat at number 10 against England in 1969. It was his second Test and his first at home. He received a huge ovation from the home fans when he came out to bat, even more than the star batters before him.
He also made some runs, all 16 not out of them. They were cheered by the crowd like they were something incredibly special. His innings actually ended up helping Pakistan get to 246.
Niaz Ahmed also bowled with the new ball. He took the wicket of the legendary bowler Jon Snow, while Basil D'Oliveira made 100 at the other end. But it was clear that every time he touched the ball, or did anything at all, the crowd absolutely loved it.
That is because it was specifically his crowd. This game was for Pakistan, but it was being played in East Pakistan – which is now Bangladesh. Niaz Ahmed was the first player from East Pakistan to play Test Cricket for Pakistan.
Sounds like a great story, doesn't it? Not really.
The reason that Niaz was playing at all was because he was a token. These games were being played in East Pakistan, and the idea that there was a player on the verge of selection was a pretty big deal.
Niaz Ahmed actually spent most of his time as 12th man, despite the fact that no one in Pakistan really thought he was good enough to get into the side. Instead of actually trying to help cricket in East Pakistan, they just put a token in.
But two years after his final test match, which was that game, Bangladesh would become an independent nation. They played their first Test in 2000.
It's really important to note that Bangladesh didn't just go and beat a random team away from home. They went and beat the team that they were once part of, that they once had 12th man and occasional Test players for. They didn't just beat Pakistan, they beat Pakistan in Pakistan 2-0.
Years ago when I had my blog, I used to call the Bangladesh team 'the Toygers'. It was partly because I really liked the word, bravo to whoever coined it. Back when when the blog first started in the 2006-07, I would watch Bangladesh play and think they have some young players here, but they don't look international level yet.
For a long time, they got stuck in that rut. In the past, I've talked about how they essentially did the weirdest thing in cricket. They started Test cricket, played it for a few years, then got rid of everyone with experience and went with this Toyger side who had to learn the format.
Of course, they have had some moments of success. They reached the quarter-final in the 2015 World Cup and the semi-final in the 2017 Champions Trophy. In Tests, we have seen them beat Australia and England at home.
But as far as their biggest Test win goes, that was probably beating New Zealand. I think we now know that New Zealand were at the end of their reign. Regardless of that, winning a Test against them when much better teams were struggling there was an incredible effort.
Their away record makes the series win in Pakistan even more fascinating. Before that series, Bangladesh had played 65 matches away from home. They had six wins, 55 losses and only four draws. Look at the number of draws. Bangladesh couldn't even stay in matches long enough to make sure they didn't lose them.
Part of this was the era they played in. They also played on some very flat surfaces, where other teams made a lot of runs. The other interesting stat is that they lost almost half of those matches by an innings. Bangladesh would travel somewhere, bat twice, watch the other team bat once, and head home.
New Zealand and South Africa had similar away records when they began playing Tests. The difference was that social media didn't exist. Also, when New Zealand would play back in those days, there weren't actually that many games. They would lose, but then there would be a few months before you had to think about them again.
Bangladesh have been losing over and over again, despite playing just nine away matches combined against the Big 3. But it's worth having a look at the six wins.
Bangladesh have beaten Zimbabwe twice in Zimbabwe, which is a good effort. Maybe if they had played them more, they would have more wins there. They also won a Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo in 2017.
They also beat the West Indies twice. But if you go back through the scorecards, you notice that most of their first-choice players were on strike. However, they still had some good players like Kemar Roach and Darren Sammy.
How did they beat Pakistan? Mushfiqur Rahim's innings in the first match was monumental. It kept them in the match for long enough to eventually get on top. In fact, they already had a lead of 80 runs when he got out.
In the second test, Litton Das played an even more remarkable innings. At one stage, it looked like they were going to be bowled out for 40. Litton brought them back in the game and got them into a great position.
It is great that one of the older guard and the player we've all been waiting for to finally play an innings like this both stepped up. If you get such two innings in a two match series, you're in a really good position.
I think the more important player though is Mehidy Hasan Miraz. When he started, he was a very good bowler and would occasionally score runs. He's still probably not quite an allrounder, but he's on the verge of being one.
In this series, he took wickets and was their third best batter. His ability to chip in with the bat was incredibly important because some of the other batters did not score as many runs.
When Bangladesh actually have him and Shakib (who hasn't always been around), they can build their entire team around these two allrounders. Think about this from a cricket perspective. They have two spinners that turn the ball in different directions. One of them can definitely bat in the top six and the other can bat at seven or eight.
If they could keep Shakib for two or three years, they can put together any kind of bowling attack that they want. They don't actually need the other three bowlers to be stars, but they can have five bowlers available to them in what is an incredibly versatile attack. In the future, if Mustafizur makes a comeback in Tests and they give opportunities to legspinner Rishad Hossain, they have even more options available to them.
The team that this most reminds me of is India at the moment, or England of a few years ago. You look at their bowling lineup and think they have a lot of variety, which is very useful when you're on the road. While the all rounders are really handy, they're just a much better seam bowling team than they've ever been before.
What about the World Test Championship? They're going to India next, which is not ideal. However, they've given themselves a chance at a conversation that they didn't really have at all before. It probably won't be a long conversation, but it's nice to be mentioned.
Not many would have expected them to win 2-0. There was always a chance of draws, especially in Pakistan. When it comes down to it, Pakistan had plenty of chances to win all of these tests, but in almost every situation, Bangladesh got the most out of themselves. Their players seem to have far more role clarity than Pakistan.
The bowling attacks of the two teams really show the difference between them. In the last three years of Test cricket, Pakistan's bowling average is almost 37. They can't take wickets at all. Bangladesh has better spin than Pakistan at the moment without a doubt. You might not take their seamers over Pakistan's, but you can have conversations about some of them.
From the WTC perspective, the 2-0 is far more important. It's not just that they beat Pakistan. It is very hard to win away without being a little scrappy. You have to give Bangladesh credit for the fact that they were scrappy twice, yet they won.
But this is how you win away from home. They're not going to get a lot of great, pretty wins. They'll have to grit and grind for them. Like I've said before, Bangladesh cricket is set up for grit and grind, unlike almost any other cricket culture I've ever seen. They love that style of cricket.
I also want to talk about Ramiz Raja. Quite a few years ago, everyone on Bangladesh cricket Twitter kept asking me why Ramiz Raja hates Bangladesh cricket. At that stage, he was not an important person. He wasn't running anything, and was just a former player and a commentator. He wasn't someone that I thought that a whole cricket community should take that seriously.
When you start to get into the issues, you understand a lot of it is to do with East Pakistan and how some Pakistani people were brought up to think about East Pakistan. When I talked to Ramiz Raja about that, he said things like "Oh, they need to grow up". There was a feeling that Pakistan was a big brother and Bangladesh just needed to shut up and do something.
When I write on Bangladesh cricket, generally people from other Asian cricket countries go, "Why are you talking about them? They're absolutely irrelevant." They still haven't really won all that much, even if you look at this series. But the Ramiz Raja thing is more about culture and identity.
There have been floods and nationwide student protests leading to Sheikh Hasina's resignation in Bangladesh. The star player of the team was named in connection with a murder, even though he was out of the country at the time. Three days ago, Khaled Mahmud stepped down as the BCB director.
Think about Bangladesh. So far, the only thing that's ever really been there is the hope, the belief. The hope that one day this country, obviously have already produced some very good cricketers, are just going to work it out. The last time you really expect cricketers to come together and actually pull this off is when the country is in trouble.
The nation of Bangladesh needed some joy. And of course they know a lot about joy. They have a whole song about joy. Maybe all this does is give them a little bit of joy at the moment and a lot more hope for moments like these going into the future.
If you can get joy from 2-0 against Pakistan, you definitely take it.
