Nobody seems to know why Shakib is hardly bowling

Left-arm spinner Taijul Islam bagged a five-wicket haul in the first innings of the one-off Ireland Test, bowling 28 overs. But his senior spin-bowling partner and captain Shakib Al Hasan bowled only three overs. 

Taijul impressed again in the second innings with a four-for but it was a hard day for the Bangladesh bowlers as Ireland lost only four wickets on day three. Shakib, who was on fire with the new ball late on day two, surprisingly bowled only six overs on the third day.

Shakib and Taijul bowled seven overs each before stumps on day two, putting Ireland in trouble with four down. While Taijul bowled 31 more overs with two more scalps, Shakib bowled only six overs.

In the press conference after the end of first day's play, Taijul admitted he didn't know exactly the reason why Shakib bowled so less. "Probably he wanted us [the other bowlers] to do the job all by ourselves. He would've come [into the attack] if we had struggled," Taijul said on Tuesday. 

Bangladesh bowling coach Allan Donald was surprised by Shakib's today's decision to bowl only six overs while Taijul bowled one-third of the team's overs.

"Yeah [Shakib not bowling made a big difference], I'm sure, because what Shakib does amazingly well is he shuts one end down and because he's such an experienced campaigner, he varies his pace really smartly," Donald said. "Although there was no real turn all day long, I thought he would've been a guy that would control one end and really shut one end down."

Donald said the other bowlers bowled with a lot of heart and expected that they would wrap things up quickly tomorrow.

"But listen, I'll go back to the other guys as well. I thought Miraz, Taijul, the three seamers tried their guts out today. And it didn't quite happen. But tomorrow morning's a big morning. I mean, they are 130 runs ahead now if I'm correct. So, tomorrow we gotta go bang, bang quickly and get batting."