Still room for improvement

The series scoreline says 1-0 in favour of Bangladesh, and that can too easily be seen as a vindication of all the decisions and strategies that led to Wednesday's stirring 20-run victory. That may be the way the powers that be are thinking as they named an unchanged squad for the second Test in Chittagong starting on September 4. But the narrow margin of victory and the fact that it could easily have been different if not for Taijul Islam and Shakib Al Hasan's bowling heroics on the last day suggest that all was not perfect in Bangladesh's thinking and execution, even though it was a fine victory to be cherished.

In that regard, not much has changed since before the first Test, as team selection and the batting order are still contentious.

It is not that Shafiul Islam bowled badly; it is just that he really did not bowl. He bowled six overs out of a total of 74.5 overs in the first innings and was manning the boundary for the entirety of the 70.5 overs in the second innings. Only part-timer Nasir Hossain bowled less, but at least his four overs were spread across both innings and in the second dig he opened the bowling in place of Shafiul.

Now Nasir is mainly a batsman, so use out of him can be gotten elsewhere, but to play Shafiul as a specialist deep fine leg fielder or a specialist sweeper cover is luxury that Bangladesh can ill afford.

Shafiul's selection has been a point of controversy since before the first Test started. On a raging turner, if two pacers were to be fielded, was Shafiul -- who can be a fine if injury-prone bowler in helpful conditions -- the best choice as Mustafizur Rahman's pace partner?

Against England last year the first Test in Chittagong was played with pacers Kamrul Islam Rabbi and Shafiul, and even though they collectively bowled many more overs than the combined 15 bowled by Mustafizur and Shafiul in the Dhaka Test against Australia, Shafiul was excluded in the second Test and all-rounder Shuvagata Hom was brought in to shore up the batting.

That could be the way forward here. Judging by the wicket in last year's Test against England, Chittagong will be as much of a dustbowl as Mirpur, perhaps with less uneven bounce. Bangladesh proved that on such pitches they can take 20 wickets with four specialist bowlers, so picking an additional batsman may be the way to go, especially as just 20 runs have separated the two teams so far.

But for that they will have to choose either the currently out of favour Mominul Haque -- shoehorned into the first Test squad at the last moment, arguably because of public sentiment -- or Liton Das, a capable batsman whose chief value till now has been as wicketkeeping understudy for skipper Mushfiqur Rahim. In that light, the kneejerk naming of an unchanged squad does not seem particularly wise.

Then there is the perennial problem with Soumya Sarkar, whose talent is undoubted but proved himself technically and temperamentally deficient as an opener in the first Test. The persistence with him has a knock-on effect of breaking up Bangladesh's most successful opening pair of Tamim Iqbal and Imrul Kayes, with the latter being turned into a makeshift, ill-at-ease number three in the absence of Mominul.  It may well be that Imrul, who failed in both innings in Mirpur, makes way in Chittagong as there seems to be a chopping block with his name indelibly engraved on it. Then there is the problem with Sabbir Rahman who has become a floater in the batting order, which is a concept more suited to ODIs and T20Is.

Australia will certainly have a lot of headaches, but it is not as if the current series leaders will not have a worry-free Eid.