Saifuddin has talent to fill Bangladesh void

Looking at Mohammad Saifuddin, you get a lingering feeling that he has the bit between the teeth often missing in pace-bowling allrounders from Bangladesh. He runs in hard to the crease and rushes into his bowling action, which gives him decent pace. With the bat, his role in the Under-19s side is to attack from a lower-order position.

Against South Africa in the opening match, he took 3 for 30 and made an unbeaten 17. In the practice match against England, he was 46 not out and took two wickets. Clearly, he can contribute with bat and ball at this early stage of his career, though he considers himself a batting allrounder. He averages 30.38 with the bat in first-class cricket, where he has made two fifties for Chittagong Division. He has also taken 19 wickets at 35.63.

At Youth ODI level, he has 35 wickets at 23.28 to go with a batting average of just 19.00 in 23 innings so far. There will be a time when he has to decide which part of his cricket he wants to develop more, and although it is too early to say whether he will fulfil the role of a pace-bowling allrounder in the senior team, his skills point him in the direction of a role Bangladesh have struggled with.

Saifuddin is also quite tall and well-built, chest thrust out. His wicket celebrations are like Shahid Afridi's though he insists it is his own style. He spoke without much inhibition in front of the large media contingent present in Cox's Bazar, explaining his role in the team, which is to bowl ten tight overs and give a thrust with the bat towards the end of the innings.

"Because we have a good spin attack, our coaches told me to check the run flow in the first ten overs," he said. "I think we did a fair job, so it helped bowl out South Africa quickly. My role in every match is to give as few runs and take a wicket or two. I am not worried about how fast I am bowling. I just think about being economical.

"I am mainly a batsman-cum-pace bowler. Maybe I am batting at No. 7 or 8 because of the team combination. I try to fulfil what is expected of me. I try to give batting and bowling enough thought when I do either."

Saifuddin hails from Feni, a little southeastern district that partly borders Tripura to its east. He has just begun studying accounting at Feni college. The story goes that his father wasn't too keen on him playing cricket so, after being encouraged by someone in his neighbourhood, he snuck out to the age-group trials. He failed the first time but in 2010 got picked for the regional Under-15s side. He also played a lot of regional tournaments, mainly with taped-tennis balls and in the T20 format. Saifuddin said he learned bowling the yorker in these tournaments, though he is still working hard to master the delivery.

"I used to play a lot of taped-tennis cricket in my childhood. So I had to bowl plenty of yorkers since those days. I got taped-tennis accuracy with the cricket ball. I got the habit of bowling yorkers from playing in T20 tournaments in in Laxmipur, Noakhali and Comilla. I am trying to get better at it. I try to bowl at least 20-25 yorkers during spot bowling after bowling 18-20 deliveries at a good length."

Saifuddin's heroes are Corey Anderson and Ben Stokes, two of modern cricket's most destructive allrounders. Bangladesh could do with one of those but it is far more encouraging that they now have an Under-19 cricketer who wants to be a pace-bowling allrounder, and not just a batsman.