A triumph spurred by belief

Bangladesh beating Pakistan by six wickets in the second and last Test and clean sweeping the two-match series is an accurate description of what happened yesterday at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, but it falls woefully short of capturing the magnitude of what the Najmul Hossain Shanto-led side accomplished.
Inside two weeks, Bangladesh dragged themselves out of seemingly unwinnable positions, not once but twice, in foreign conditions against an opponent whom they had lost to 12 times out of 13 previous encounters in Tests.
In both matches, Shanto thinks it was the players’ indomitable belief that got them through tough situations.
“Belief is very important. Every single player believed that we can come back,” Shanto said at the post-match press conference.
Yesterday, chasing a target of 185 on the fifth day of the match, Bangladesh’s win hardly looked in doubt.
But victory, let alone a comfortable one, looked out of the picture on Day 3 when they were six down for just 26 runs, replying to Pakistan’s first innings score of 274.
The Tigers required a miracle to recover from that position and that miracle arrived in the collective form of Liton Das and Mehedi Hasan Miraz, who together added 165 runs for the seventh wicket to save Bangladesh’s blushes and bring down the deficit to 12.
Liton, who had shown his form with a classy 56 in the previous Test, hit a scintillating 138 while Miraz, who had already stamped his mark in the match with a five-wicket haul in the first innings, scored a valiant 78.
Shanto said that Miraz, who was named the player-of-the-series, was positive even when the side was six down and believed he and Liton could get the job done.
“After losing six wickets [in first innings] we still believed. Before Miraz went out to bat, he said that he and Liton will do the job for the team. These guys have done it before but this one was impressive.”
In the series opener, it was Mushfiqur Rahim’s 191, Shadman Islam’s 93 and Miraz’s 77 that allowed Bangladesh to take a sizable 117-run lead after Pakistan had declared their first innings on 448-6.
And then, Miraz and Shakib spun a web over the Pakistani batters, claiming four and three wickets respectively to bundle out Pakistan for 146, setting up a 30-run target which the openers chased down without breaking a sweat.
In both matches, Bangladesh showed they have the ability to deal with the ebbs and flows of a Test match as players never looked short of self-belief even when the situation was not in their favour.
Shanto had spoken of this belief in the team before the series began and his side backed up his words with incredible performances.
“Before we start the series, I said in a press conference that records can be broken. It was because we knew how well the players had prepared themselves. This was very important for us and we are very happy.”