The Subashis show and the Hathuru bouncer

There are interesting tidbits you can catch during a Bangladesh practice session, especially when the team are in the run of form they are currently in on the tour of Sri Lanka.

Yesterday at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground in Colombo, the team had an optional practice session where nine of the 17-member squad showed up. There are no prizes for guessing that the forever diligent Mushfiqur Rahim was one of them. The eight others were Mustafizur Rahman and Soumya Sarkar from the team that played the first two ODIs, and Imrul Kayes, Shuvagata Hom, Nurul Hasan, Subashis Roy, Rubel Hossain and Sanjamul Islam from the bench.

After fielding drills, the nine headed to the nets. While the batting of Mushfiqur is always a joy to watch, Subashis stole the show yesterday. It seems Courtney Walsh, Bangladesh's fast bowling coach and former legendary West Indies fast bowler-cum-batting-bunny, has a rival.

Facing local net bowlers, spinners mostly, Subashis went to the crease with a chest guard and proceeded to come down the wicket on numerous occasions and get bowled. All the while Richard Halsall, the fielding coach, was looking on and called Subashis over while Rubel took his place and smashed them to all parts.

A few words with Halsall, who gave him some instructions along with some shadow demonstrations, and Subashis was a changed man -- for three minutes. He took his feet to the ball and played some half-decent drives, but soon enough it was down the wicket and bowled again.

Before the Subashis show however, the incumbent and the deposed were batting in adjoining nets. Imrul, for some time Tamim Iqbal's opening partner, was batting nicely in one net while the man who currently walks out to start proceedings, Soumya, was receiving throwdowns with the sidearm from head coach Chandika Hathurusingha and was not looking half as fluent. But Soumya seems one of those players who does not really flourish inside the confines of the nets but hits his stride when out in the middle.

At any rate, he would have been well advised to follow Subashis's example and wear a chest guard. After ducking under a few sidearm bouncers, he attempted to sway out of one and it hit him in the chest. He crouched in pain by the side of the net and Hathurusingha went to check up on him, but it looked fine and Soumya was back on his feet ready to face the next ball.

As Hathurusingha was walking back, he seemed to have a wry smile on his face. Perhaps he was relishing felling a batsman, even if with the aid of a sidearm, as he probably would not have done it very often with his military medium in his playing days.

Then Mushfiqur came to replace Soumya and middled almost every ball thrown at him. He may not be one for the lighter moments, but he certainly shows the rest how it is done.