Will Tigers’ fate change with Shakib on board?

"I cannot say what the result would have been but had Shakib [bhai] been with us in the tour, he surely would have impacted the game differently," said a dejected Mominul Haque, the Bangladesh Test skipper, after experiencing a thumping defeat yesterday in the second and final Test against Pakistan in Karachi.

A high flying Bangladesh, coming fresh from their clean series sweep against Zimbabwe last month, were slammed back onto the ground without their top all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, who has been serving a two-year ban -- with one of those years suspended -- imposed by the ICC since October last year.

The above scenario may be fictitious but considering the plight of a Shakib-less Bangladesh, especially in Tests over the years, this sure seems to be a fair assumption. And although it was Shakib under whose leadership Bangladesh were handed the most humiliating Test defeat by Afghanistan last year, still, Bangladesh's Test results have been positively impacted by Shakib in Tests in the last three years.

Since 2017, Bangladesh played a total of 12 Tests without Shakib and could only muster two wins out of those, losing nine and drawing one. In the same timeframe, the Tigers registered four wins and eight defeats having played the same number of Tests with Shakib in the squad.

The coronavirus pandemic has seen Bangladesh face a total of five series postponements, all of which Shakib was originally scheduled to miss. If not for the Pandemic, in these five series, Bangladesh would have played a total of eight Tests -- all of which would have been considered for the World Test Championship, a competition where the Tigers are yet to register a single point -- four ODIs and four T20Is.

And even though Tigers fared somewhat convincingly in the shorter versions -- ODIs and T20Is -- in the past three years without Shakib, they clearly struggled in Tests even with or without their star all-rounder. Since Shakib's ban, Bangladesh managed one Test win out of the four they played. That win was however an expected one and did not put the Tigers to a stiff test as it was against Zimbabwe, an 11th ranked Test side, that too at home.

The struggles in the longer format were much more evident against higher-ranked opponents in foreign turf. Soon after Shakib's ban, the BCB had appointed Mominul as the Test captain in a rather hasty manner before their tour to India in November last year. The best result that the Tigers achieved in the two Tests in India was an innings and 46-run defeat in the pink-ball Test in Kolkata. Similar performance was once again repeated in Rawalpindi when Bangladesh were handed yet another innings defeat, this time by Pakistan in February this year.

Surely the enforced halt has spared Bangladesh a very tough challenge in the longer version this year. The challenge will still be tough but at least now the Tigers may have their best all-rounder alongside them as all the postponed series do not seem likely to be rescheduled before Shakib's ban comes to an end in October this year.

Shakib, currently in the United States with his family, mentioned in an interview with CricInfo recently that he plans to return to training next month, giving himself a three-month period to prepare for a return to cricket. And without a doubt, Shakib's announcement of returning to training comes as an exciting news for the Bangladesh side, who can now also expect their top all-rounder to feature in the coming T20 World Cup that has been deferred to the next year and the Asia Cup which is also likely to be rescheduled next year.