Still haunted by pace demons

Right-arm pacer Kamrul Islam is among the few of the national pool of fast bowlers who, despite making his Test debut two years ago, has still been unable to establish himself in the Bangladesh team.

Kamrul made his comeback to the Test side after a year when he played against West Indies in the second Test at Sabina Park. However, he remained wicketless and the humiliating defeat in the two-match series raised questions about the ability of Bangladesh's fast bowlers, especially given their below par performance in the seam-friendly conditions and how well their West Indies counterparts had fared.

Abu Jayed was the most successful pacer over the two games with seven wickets, but interestingly no other seamer in the team was able to scalp a single wicket in either Test.

Following the 2015 World Cup in Australia-New Zealand it seemed that the Tigers' fast bowling department had started to flourish and that provided a sigh of relief. However, the long-standing problem has again come to the fore since then with many pacers in the Bangladesh line-up failing to show consistency.

Al Amin Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Subashish Roy, Shafiul Islam, Mohammad Shahid and Kamrul have all been unable to show any kind of consistency and the brunt of the work has been done by ODI skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Mustafizur Rahman and Rubel Hossain. The newest additions could be Khaled Ahmed and Shoriful Islam, who are currently with the A team in Ireland.

That has raised huge concerns for new head coach Steve Rhodes, who has urged selectors to find tall, well-built pacers for the upcoming assignments, especially for the longest format of the game.

However, Kamrul believes it would be ideal to work with the existing pacers and develop their skills rather than finding other options.

"The most important thing is to develop skills as we need to improve a lot. I think with the height we have we can achieve that [what other pacers can] and keeping the genetics of our country in mind we won't get the same height as the West Indies bowlers," Kamrul told reporters at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday. "If we want to find such tall bowlers then I think we should import bowlers from West Indies but I think we will be able to do well with the height we have and win matches."

The 26-year-old, giving the example of India pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, said that if they were able to develop swing movement along with some pace it could help bowlers be effective in the longest format. Kamrul also added that the importance of bowling longer spells in the domestic circuit along with seam-friendly pitches could also be helpful.

Expectations on West Indies fast bowling legend Courtney Walsh were high after he was appointed as the Tigers' bowling coach and it was thought that the presence of former Sri Lanka pacer Champaka Ramanayake would only serve to bolster the Bangladesh pace bowling department further.

But there are also questions about whether the cricketers have been able to implement those lessons and improve their skills.

However Sarwar Imran, the coach during Bangladesh's maiden Test match, emphasised on the need for a fast bowling clinic which will monitor, observe and groom new pacers from the grassroots level throughout the year.

"I think for a Test playing nation it's important to have a fast bowling clinic which will monitor bowlers and prescribe what type of training is required. Unfortunately we don't have any, which is the reason we see many pacers come and go due to the lack of monitoring and guidance. Yes it's difficult to find tall pacers but if we pick at least a few tall bowlers and groom them in the camp they can be handy," Imran told The Daily Star yesterday.