India’s pace sensation Mayank Yadav peppered the speed guns on his international debut, clocking close to 150 km/h in the first T20I against Bangladesh in Gwalior. He hurried the Bangladesh batters with his sheer pace and bounce. What was even more impressive was his lengths – short but not short enough for the batters to line up for the horizontal-bat shots.
Mayank started his international career with a maiden and then even got the wicket of veteran all-rounder Mahmudullah in his next over and if the initial show was anything to go by, then it did appear that Bangladesh batters are in for a hard time in the remaining two matches of the series.
However, ask Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto about the same and you would get a very different reply. Shanto said they are used to facing such speed in the nets. “We have some similar fast bowlers in the nets. I don’t think we were too worried about (Mayank Yadav). But he is a good bowler,” he said after India won the first T20I by 7 wickets to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
The current Bangladesh T20I squad does not have an out-and-out fast bowler apart from Taskin Ahmed, who clocks speeds of 140+ regularly. But in the Test squad, they did have young Nahid Rana, who nudged the 150 km/h mark.
Coming back to Mayank’s performance, the right-arm pacer was hit for a few boundaries towards the end of the spell when Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Rishad Hossain used his extra pace to ramp it through the third-man region, but overall, he was very impressive. In his four overs, Mayank gave away only 21 runs and picked up one wicket.
He burst onto the scene in IPL 2024, bowling 150 km/h regularly for the Luckno Super Giants before a side strain cut his tournament short. Since then, he has been closely monitored by the BCCI medical team at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru. Sunday’s outing was his first competitive cricket match in five months.
‘Our batters can’t score 180plus’: Shanto
Shanto candidly admitted that his team doesn’t know how to consistently post 180-plus totals in a T20 game.
Batting has been Bangladesh’s weak link for a while, especially their approach in the powerplay. They struggled to 39 for two in six overs on Sunday night before managing a below-par 127. India chased that down in just 11.5 overs to go 1-0 up in the series.
“We have the ability, but we have room for improvement in our skills. We have been batting in this way for the last 10 years. Sometimes we do well. We have to make some changes, perhaps where we practice back home.” Shanto feels that tracks in Bangladesh aren’t conducive for big scoring games of T20 and that has affected their collective batting performance.
“We play on 140-150 wickets at home. Our batters don’t know how to score 180 runs. I won’t blame just the wickets, but we have to consider skills and mentality,” Shanto said following the crushing loss.
