After a few months, Bangladesh pace bowler Shafiul Islam will complete a decade in international career. Shafiul himself might not believe, how quickly time went on. He was a regular face in Tigers roster during the first three years of his career.
However, after that the 29-year-old was inconsistent in national team’s jersey, mainly because of injury and poor form. From then till now, he only gets the nod when a regular pacer gets injured.
A recent example was, when skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza got injured during Sri Lanka series last month, Taskin Ahmed was selected first as a replacement,
but later Shafiul was flown at the last minute.
He took 6 wickets in the
three-match ODI series.
It was a good performance by a Bangladeshi bowler in a series where Tigers where outplayed in every department. On top of that, Shafiul came back to the ODI side after 3 years and played that series.
Whenever he plays, his ball swinging ability pleases everyone and a question raises why this boy does not play that often? Shafiul might ask the same question to himself as well.
He still regret the fact that he would have enjoyed a more joyous and stellar career if he was not that injury prone. “I not happy with my career as I played international cricket for nine years [but yet to get it settled],” said Shafiul.
”First time I played for three years rgularly in the national team. Then I suffered injury for a lot of time and still my career is not over and if I get the chance I want to make a mark,” he said.
“I have been pretty unlucky with injury with past and I am trying to do my work regularly and on many occasions I have suffered from injury after getting a call for the national squad and that was quite unlucky for me,” he rued.
With the new coaching setup in the national team, Shafiul might finally look to make his permanent in Test format at least. If he remains injury free, his fiery ability to swing the ball might become lethal for Bangladesh in years to come.
