Nahid Rana - Bangladesh's baby-faced white tiger bowling fast, learning faster
Nahid finished with bowling figures of 5-61 in 18 overs as Bangladesh took an 18-run 1st innings lead and finished the day on 195-5, leading the hosts by 211 runs.
When we think of the archetypical fast bowler we generally think they are mean, nasty and look intimidating.
Just think of the great West Indian quartet of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft, and Joel Garner, popularly known as the cricket version of 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse'.
Even the current crop of West Indian fast bowlers look more menacing than the fastest man in the 2nd Test at Kingston, Bangladesh's Nahid Rana.
Nahid looks like a tall baby-faced kid straight out of college or university (at best), who is just happy to be there playing cricket.
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His general demeanour or body language doesn't have much to suggest otherwise as he comes off as the tall, shy and quiet type.
That is until you tell him to bowl.
His first delivery in his spell is generally his slowest ball, but everything after that becomes express.
And by express, we mean too hot to handle for most batters, no matter the conditions.
Pakistan discovered the sort of damage he could do earlier in the year where Bangladesh won the series away from home 2-0.
Bangladesh's pace bowling revolution has been ongoing for a decade now but even through all these years, they never had a bowler that could bowl up to 150kmph and regularly in the mid 140s, especially in Tests, until the emergence of Nahid.
There's a popular adage that goes 'pace is pace yaar (my friend)', and that is very much true for Nahid Rana; he truly is the rarest of breeds in Bangladesh cricket, the white tiger - Bangladesh's white tiger.
But at the same time, as the great Ian Bishop said on commentary during day 3 of the 2nd Test, "pace without precision is nothing" and Nahid has been precise with this precision, especially in this match.
Nahid first got Mikyle Louis in the third session of the second day by getting under the batter's skin.
When a delivery bounced viciously off the surface, Nahid gave Louis a stare, almost asking him, 'Hit me if you can'.
A few deliveries later, Louis lost his cool and ended up playing an expansive shot which took the outside edge of his bat and resulted in a simple catch for Litton Das behind the wickets.
Nahid let out a roar in his celebration, which is also different from his usually subdued celebrations; it showed he's adding more mental layers to his game and the baby-faced 22-year-old is growing with experience.
Bangladesh would have to wait almost 30 overs for the next breakthrough as the hosts chipped away at the total but Nahid kept hitting good lengths on a helpful surface.
One such delivery bounced a little extra off of a length and was too much for Windies captain Kraigg Brathwaite, who could only manage to pop up a simple catch for the gully fielder.
In Nahid's very next over, he had Kavem Hodge in all sorts of trouble and eventually, he fell, mostly due to some extremely good catching from Litton.
Nahid was now in his zone and found support from the other bowlers - Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, and Taijul Islam - who all chipped in with wickets as Bangladesh took the upper hand.
The man from Chapai Nawabgonj would come back for another spell and this time he bowled with more hostility and shorter lengths against the tailenders, another sign of Nahid's development.
He would go on to take the wicket of Alzarri Joseph and then finish things off with the wicket of Kemar Roach, who got hit in the shoulder twice by Nahid's bouncers; this is a weapon Bangladesh previously never had at their disposal.
That proved pivotal for the Tigers as West Indies' pace leader Roach had to be sent for scans to see if there was a fracture during the second session and Bangladesh's batters took advantage of his absence with some counter-punching batting.
Nahid finished with bowling figures of 5-61 in 18 overs as Bangladesh took an 18-run 1st innings lead and finished the day on 195-5, leading the hosts by 211 runs.
"I just tried to keep things simple, bowl the right lengths and adjust things according to the batters", Nahid said via a video on Bangladesh Cricket Board's (BCB) socials after the day's play.
One can tell in the video that Nahid isn't much of a keen or comfortable speaker in front of the camera, with him taking quite a few gulps and looking away from the camera at times to gather his thoughts.
While that may be the case, on the field and inside the 22-yard pitch, he's much more at home and comfortable expressing himself with his bowling.
Nahid feels Bangladesh need "a score of around 250" to be gunning for victory in the 2nd Test and to level the series 1-1.
"The pitch has uneven bounce and is taking sharp turn so it will only get tougher for the batters as time progresses," he concluded.
One thing is for sure, things will only get tougher for the batters that face Nahid Rana's bowling if he keeps learning and improving at this rate.
