The clapping goes on

The sight of a teenager clapping and laughing his guts out is soon becoming the country's most sought after scenario. Perhaps the best part about the spectacle is that when Mustafizur Rahman is on a roll, one doesn't get to witness the typical outrage of a fast bowler, but the innocent, childish joy of a youngster who has suddenly found the world at his feet.

While Mustafizur did weave his magic in the one-dayers, there were many who were sceptical about giving him his first Test cap. And so, when he went wicket-less in his first two spells yesterday, the status updates and the 'told you so' opinions started pouring out in the middle of the day.

However, the left-armer silenced them all with a magical three-wicket burst that changed the entire scenario of the game.

"If I have to compare my performances then I would keep today's game ahead of the rest. That's because in one-dayers, whether I bowl in the right areas or not, everyone tries to score runs.

"But in longer version cricket, you won't get wickets unless you bowl in the good areas. Test cricket is fun when you get wickets… not when you field for one and a half days," a smiling Mustafizur told reporters at the post-day press conference yesterday.

It was a seemingly long reply to the first question, considering the fact that he mostly depended on one-word answers in the previous press meets.

Either he is beginning to enjoy these moments or it could have been the 20-odd minutes that BCB's media manager Rabeed Imam had spent with him in front of the dressing room ahead of the press conference.

"In the first spell, I wasn't able to bowl well. After the lunch break, my coach [Heath Streak] told me to have a look at the way I bowl and try to do something different and that's what I did from then on.

"Even though I wasn't bowling well initially I made it a point to focus on bowling dot balls so that we could put pressure on them from both ends. That's how the wickets would eventually come," he continued.

When he first played international cricket in April this year, Mustafizur's bowling speed seemed to be limited to around 130 kms. Recently though, he has been breaking the 140-km mark. The left-hander credited the increase to regular gym-work and the BCB's high performance programme.

But then again speed isn't everything. Mustafizur had to follow a rather different approach in his first Test.

"In ODIs, I generally bowl around two to three variations in an over. In Test cricket I bowl variations after two or three overs," explained Mustafizur, adding that he enjoyed Hashim Amla's scalp the most amongst the four wickets.

That the left-armer enjoyed his first ever Test stint was evident at the end of the press conference.

While he was walking towards the team bus he was casually asked about how he felt about the three-wicket over, he wildly clapped his hands -- almost as though he was reliving those moments in the 60th over -- and said, "Those three wickets felt amazing… Allah is giving me the wickets!"