Taijul Islam unaware of his 50 Test wickets milestone

Bangladesh left-arm spinner Taijul Islam became only the 5th from his country to take 50 wickets in Test cricket during the 1st Test match against Australia at Dhaka. Taijul played a crucial part in their historic Test win over the Aussies by taking three wickets on the 4th day of the Test. Thus he also became the 2nd fastest Bangladesh player to reach the milestone taking just 14 Test matches.

Taijul, who started the game with 48 Test wickets, dismissed Peter Handscomb in the first innings and got rid of the same man in the 2nd innings as well to complete 50 Test wickets. He later took the wicket of Ashton Agar and the last man Josh Hazlewood to seal the game. Speaking about his achievement, Taijul says that he wasn’t aware of his 50th Test wicket and was mainly focusing on the game which spiced up after the Australians putting a fight after collapsing in the first innings.

“To be honest, at that moment it wasn’t in my mind,” said Islam. “We were under pressure on field at that moment and were only thinking about the fate of the match. I was mainly focusing on winning the match,” the Bangladesh player was quoted as saying by Bdcrictime.

Hope to get a turning surface at Chittagong

Taijul hoped that the track at Chittagong would be similar to the one at Dhaka which helped their spinners. He also said that the helpful pitches won’t win matches if they don’t put up a good show with both bat and ball as they missed a series win against England last year losing the first Test by 22 runs which was played on a similar surface.

“I’m hoping for a similar wicket, to the one where they (Australia) lost- as it’ll help us. But just hoping won’t win us the match, the batsmen and the bowlers both will have to play well. Last year we beat England. We could’ve beaten them 2-0 too but missed the opportunity by a whisker. Beating Australia 2-0 is nothing impossible,” the 25-year-old said.