Super Performer Of The Day

MUSTAFIZUR RAHMAN

His first wicket on T20I debut was Shahid Afridi, a batsman better known to the world as the hardest hitter of a cricket ball. His first wicket on ODI debut was Rohit Sharma, the only batsman to have scored two one-day double hundreds. On Tuesday Mustafizur Rahman made his Test debut at Chittagong against South Africa. And the 19-year-old boy wonder marked that august occasion with the scalp of Hashim Amla, the best batsman in contemporary cricket with more than 6,700 runs at an average of over 52. Not only that, Mustafizur turned the day on its head with a four-wicket haul that included three wickets in four deliveries. His scintillating performance saw the Tigers enjoy a rare Test day in the sun and that too against the top-ranked Test side in the world. His fourth victim was Temba Bavuma, who scored highest 54 in the visitors' unimpressive first innings total of 248. But what one cricket connoisseur Saurabh Bhuwani said in a nutshell after the day's proceedings summed up Mustafizur's impact in a new-look Tigers. "There is always a player with whom a team's transformation phase generally gets associated with. It got associated with Sanath Jayasuriya in 1996 for Sri Lanka and it may well be the same with Mustafizur Rahman for Bangladesh in 2015. What a bowler!"