Abdullah Al Mehdi

It rained in Hyderabad yesterday afternoon, a day before the third and final T20I between Bangladesh and India, but soon it ebbed away giving way to sunshine, although not for very long.

The streets of the Shankargarh village area were packed with incoming traffic at 5:00 PM, some two hours before the first T20I between India and Bangladesh yesterday. There was tight security but that hardly dampened the fans’ excitement for the game in Gwalior, where international cricket had returned after 14 years.

Bangladesh are going into the T20I series against India with promise of more aggression and intent to win. But when going against international teams of the highest-order, Bangladesh’s T20 merits fall short of the standard.

Towhid Hridoy flicked a ball that went the distance while batting against a net bowler yesterday in Gwalior’s Shrimant Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Stadium. While the youngster almost casually cleared the boundary, the veteran Mahmudullah Riyad had to take his time to get his bat speed going once he came to bat in the nets.

The area around Shrimant Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Stadium in Gwalior, set to stage the first of three T20Is between Bangladesh and hosts India, is on “high security alert” ahead of the venue’s first-ever international exposure.

“It’s blown with the wind, so Sachin’s name isn’t there. We had left it like it was in the game,” said scorer Sunil Gupta while looking at the dilapidated scoreboard at the Roop Singh Stadium in Gwalior.

It was unclear to reporters present at the Kanpur Green Park Stadium yesterday what was halting the third day’s play of the second Test between Bangladesh and India from getting on to the field.

Shakib Al Hasan came, he saw, and he conquered, in his own way.

India all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin is 38. Yet he appears to be just easing into the process of refining his art, ball by ball. His delivery that beat Bangladesh batter Mominul Haque on Day 4 of the first Test in Chennai yesterday was so belligerent that it almost defied any explanation.

When he arrived in Chennai for the first Test against India yesterday, Bangladesh pacer Hasan Mahmud’s Test career was three matches old. From an unknown entity to earning the appreciation of the proud cricket-loving fans of Chennai, Hasan has certainly created a mini ripple.

“Actually, Shakib’s [Al Hasan] batting, he is not in rhythm,” Bangladesh selector Hannan Sarkar said at the press conference in Mirpur after announcing a 16-member squad for the upcoming India Tests this month.

After the successful Pakistan tour, the programme's value has finally come to the limelight, especially in how players talked about the benefits of their preparation.

Bangladesh’s Test win at Mount Maunganui against the then World Test champions New Zealand in 2022 would certainly go down as a historic achievement in the Tigers’ history. But even Mominul Haque, the Tigers’ skipper back then, believes that winning a series away from home evokes a very different kind of feeling within the team than what a one-off win produces.

If going against the grain is a sought-after trait when achieving a backs-to-the-wall turnaround, Liton mythically overcame his performance issues in Rawalpindi.

Compared to his bowling, Miraz’s batting talents are often downplayed. But yesterday, with Bangladesh teetering on the brink on 26-6, the 26-year-old showed his class.

Bangladesh’s women’s side are slated to play the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka, scheduled to begin on July 19, with an eye on the upcoming T20 World Cup at home in October. The Tigresses, however, have a lot to work out in the meantime as they suffered a slump in recent times, with batting being their main concern in series losses to Australia and India at home. Head coach Hashan Tillakaratne talked about how the Tigresses can recover from this slump, and use their spin advantage and their target in the Asia Cup during an interview with The Daily Star’s Abdullah Al Mehdi. The excerpts of the interview are as follows:

BCB landed itself in another sticky situation after Mushtaq Ahmed, the national team’s spin bowling coach in the recent ICC T20 World Cup, joined England Under19s just days after board president Nazmul Hassan Papon said they were working on extending his contract.

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) reappointed Naveed Nawaz -- the ICC Under-19 World Cup winning coach with Bangladesh -- last month for a second stint, hoping to develop new talents and form another successful batch.

As another discussion follows on performances, will BCB this time be relieved with having made the second stage, or will they form another probe committee?

Bangladesh's team are set to return to country after their participation on a global event that laid bare the deficiencies in the nation’s cricket cognition, team building, planning, and mental resilience.