‘No compromise’ en route to becoming speed demon

Nahid Rana took giant strides yesterday in showcasing he is the 'X-factor' in that Bangladesh pace battery. His raw pace hurt Pakistan, but in the manner in which he dismantled the hosts showed there was a matured head on his shoulders.

He clocked 152kmph yesterday in Rawalpindi but it was the sheer confidence with which he set up batters titled the Test match in Bangladesh's favour.

Shan Masood was looking good but in Nahid's very first over, he was late to a slash through point twice, and the second time it happened, the Pakistan skipper was caught behind. Babar Azam was too late to his defensive shot and the result was similar. Mohammad Rizwan was beaten by a gem of a delivery that just whizzed over the stumps, the delivery too good to take a nick and in that very same over, he produced another gem to remove Saud Shakeel. Three wickets in three successive overs, Nahid competed for a fifer with Hasan Mahmud and ended one short with a haul of four for 44 in 11 overs.

A few weeks ago, the 21-year-old speedster had been training alone at Mirpur's Academy Ground before the Pakistan Tests when this reporter queried on what he had been working on. 'Reverse-swing' came the reply, with his customary smile. By the end of the session, he was getting it to tail in quite a bit. Before leaving, Rana informed he had bowled eight overs on that hot day but the smile said he was happy with the effort.

The fire to improve had to be there and his coach in Dhaka Premier League (Shinepukur) and Bangladesh Premier League (Khulna), Talha Jubair, feels the fire is what keeps Nahid ticking.

"Yes, he has that drive. I have seen him from pretty early and if he did not have that, he would not arrive at where he is now," Talha told The Daily Star yesterday.

"Whatever I told him, he took care of those aspects word for word," Talha said.

A former pace star himself, Talha had been watching Nahid since the U-19 days and says Nahid had been bowling big no balls at the time – which eventually led to Nahid not making the U-19 World Cup squad. Talha talked with Nahid's local coach Alamgir Kabir from Chapainawabganj to fix the issue.

"I sent videos to Alamgir bhai to work on his run-up and requested that he only worked on run-up. His smooth action will allow him to bowl at more pace in future but it is his accuracy that will make the difference," Talha noted.

There had been criticisms of his expensive spells in his debut series against Sri Lanka Tests and also the first Test in Rawalpindi. However, coaches identified that pace should not be compromised on, instead length was something that was focused on and in Rawalpindi, Pakistan batters' struggled because of length.

"He is still young. If you tell him to keep runs in check rather than bowl at pace, he will not be Rana anymore. You have to let him bowl at pace. You can't tell him not to bowl fast but rather get accurate at pace. I worked with him in BPL too and told him not to compromise on pace, rather talked about his lengths. He gets extra bounce, so his lengths need to be fuller and I talked about that," he said.