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Despite not being a member of the Test team, Shakib Al Hasan dominated the conversation at the Shere Bangla National Stadium, particularly after Bangladesh lost to South Africa by 106 runs in the first innings.
The majority of the questions at the press conference were directed towards Shakib, even after Taijul Islam saved the day for the home team with his 13th five-wicket haul; nine of those came in Test matches in which Shakib was not involved. Taijul responded with a little smile, but he seemed mildly irritated.
Whether Shakib or not, Taijul has quietly been here before. He’s always been a player in the shadow of Shakib, and later in the shade of both Shakib and Mehidy Hasan Miraz. However, Taijul made an impact whenever he had the chance, particularly during home Test matches.
When Shakib hasn’t been around, Taijul has actually outperformed the other bowlers by a wide margin. He even has two ten-wicket hauls, one of which last year helped Bangladesh win their first-ever Test match at home against New Zealand.
“Shakib bhai isn’t playing this game but I have played without Shakib bhai before,” Taijul said. “We have won Tests against New Zealand both in their country and at home without Shakib bhai. There are many more examples. Actually a player isn’t going to play till he is 50 years old. We have to accept it. There’s no doubt that he was a very good player. Let’s all pray that we get someone like him in the future. At the same time, those who are around also play well.”
With his fourth wicket of debutant Matthew Breetzke with an arm-ball on Monday, Taijul became the second bowler from Bangladesh to reach 200 Test wickets, following Shakib. With just 48 matches compared to Shakib’s 54, he reached the milestone sooner. This is in spite of missing 16 Test matches as Bangladesh favoured Mehidy and Shakib under foreign conditions.
“Two-hundred wickets is definitely quite good. Many bowlers have taken 200 wickets, others have gone on to take more,” Taijul said. “I haven’t had a bad career. You can’t play three spinners in most conditions. Sometimes you can play one spinner in the line-up. I was sometimes in, sometimes out. I should have played more matches given the amount of time in my career.”
Taijul was compared to Rangana Herath, who was Sri Lanka’s top spinner for just 15 Test matches when Muthiah Muralidaran was the player. Herath took over after Muralidaran departed, finishing his career with 433 Test wickets. Naturally, Mehidy and Shakib brought a lot more to the table with the bat in Taijul’s instance, but that is a different matter.
However, despite his stellar Test career, Taijul stated that he has accepted the fact that he would never be a superstar in Bangladesh.
“There’s a lot of things that happen in our country by the gift of the gab – we have seen people playing badly, but they get trolled so hard that they become stars. While there are some whose good performance don’t make them stars. I have made peace with it. There’s no other way.”