Yesterday morning, young Tanzid Hasan Tamim experienced the spirit of the national team in more than one way.
Even if it’s just a drill match, facing Taskin Ahmed is hard, even for someone who plays world cricket. When the 22-year-old hit Taskin for six over square-leg with a move that was somewhere between a front foot pull and a flick, it showed that he had the ability to cause trouble; maybe he had an x-factor. Chandika Hathurusingha was standing on the sides and paying close attention.
Yesterday, Tanzid got a call to play in a very important Asia Cup event. This is because the World Cup is coming up soon. Because his counterpart Tamim Iqbal was hurt, he was put on the team, and based on how he’s been playing lately, he may be the lead starter in the next event in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, along with Liton Das.
Taskin bowled with a lot of anger yesterday, and he often got the ball to come back at the left-hander in a nasty way. He also got Tanzid’s head, even though the young player had pointed to his bat when pace bowling coach Allan Donald, who was filling in as the referee, raised his finger for a leg-before call.
Before that, Taskin and Hasan Mahmud’s short stuff seemed to scare Tanzid. He showed that he could play with the big boys with a beautiful cover drive off Hasan and a few lofted shots for four against Mustafizur Rahman.
Adventure was part of what gave him strength and helped him fight his way to the national team.
Tanzid came from the Bangla Trac school. Former Bangladesh team head Khaled Mahmud Sujon, who chose Tanzid for the Dhaka Dynamites in 2020, remembered the criticism he got at the time.
“When Tanzid called me this morning to tell me he was chosen, I started thinking about that day and how I was criticized for choosing him.
“I knew he could do well. He plays the cut and pull shots well. He can also hit good drives and shots over the top. This morning, I told him that when you have the chance, you should play your own game. Mahmud told The Daily Star yesterday, “If he tries to change the way he plays or stop being so aggressive, it will only cause him trouble.”
Tanzid and Tawhid Hridoy are both from the same Bangla Trac batch. “Hridoy was more disciplined, while Tanzid was more adventurous,” Mahmud said.
In 2017-18, he first came to people’s attention when he played for Uttara Sporting Club in the Dhaka First Division Cricket League. His two tons that season helped his chances of being picked for the U-17 team. After hitting 371 runs for Uttara in the next season, Tanzid would be picked for the U-19s team.
In 2022, he had a hard time because he hurt his shoulder after the game. 474 runs for Brothers Union in the last DPL showed that he can go through hard times and still get better.
“After the initial burst, he went through a tough time, but it only made him stronger,” Mahmud thought.
As the coach of the team that won the U-19 World Cup in 2020, Mahmud saw Tanzid’s promise early on.
“We knew he could play shots and had a lot of strength. He didn’t have very long runs, but his starts were bold like Tamim Iqbal’s, and he had a lot of different shots. During the World Cup, he was getting out of the game fast after hitting 40 to 50 points, and trainers have been working on that. “At Potchefstroom, he was sending passes out of the park,” U-19 game development Abu Emam Mohammad Kawsar says.
The people in charge of the team are counting on this promise. Based on what Hathurusingha and the starter talked about, he might just be allowed to play his natural game.