Sports Reporter :
Left-arm leg spinner Taijul Islam is optimistic that he will get chance in Bangladesh Cricket team regularly for all three formats with his changed bowling action.
Taijul said he get confidence after getting the advice of Bangladesh Cricket team’s spin bowling consultant Daniel Vettori, who believes Taijul is capable of establishing him as the regular bowler of all three formats (Test, ODI, T20I) in Bangladesh Cricket team with the changed bowling action.
Basically Taijul Islam was considered as a bowler for Test cricket as his bowling performance is up to the mark in Test cricket. On the other hand, Taijul Islam failed to show satisfactory bowling performance in ODI cricket and in T20I cricket.
“With the previous action, I have a lot of advantages to land the ball in a particular area consistently. But with that previous action, it was difficult to continue in all three formats of cricket,” Taijul said on Tuesday. Taijul Islam has taken part in the group-in training programme at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in the city’s Mirpur.
“The level of diversity was little low with the previous action. I have talked to Vettori about the new bowling action and he said I can play with the new action in all three formats. I changed the action by thinking about different aspects, bounce of the ball and variations. I am already getting the results too by bowling the batsmen. The new action is helpful as far as the bowing variations are concerned.”
Taijul has been a go-to bowler for captains in Test cricket for a long time. He had already claimed 114 wickets in just 29 Tests and established him as one of the most successful spinners for Bangladesh. But his ODI and T20 career is not that much rich even though he had a hat-trick on his ODI debut against Zimbabwe. He so far scalped 12 wickets in nine ODIs, while took one wicket in two T20 Internationals. Thus he becomes an irregular bowler in ODI cricket and T20I cricket.
“I have personally worked with bowling. I talked to Vettori about my action, even changing the action in the middle. I am also bowling the batsmen now. The action has adapted to my body. Now bowling for two hours is not a problem,” he remarked.
“We had some personal practice, with each player having an hour or two of sessions. It has been an advantage for the players to have these sessions, to have personal practice, to be able to do their own thing,” he added.
“It’s been two weeks since I started bowling to batsmen. Confidence is increasing.”
The 28-year old left-arm spinner wants the Sri Lanka series to be held as the uncertainty looms over the series following the hosts’ harsh Covid-19 rules.
“It is very difficult for us to stay out of the game. We always like to play. It is very important to play the Sri Lanka series. If that happens then we will be back on the field,” he concluded.
