The 23rd Man on the Bench: Nobody Keeps the Real Account of Bangladesh's Pace Attack

Last winter, at half past five in the morning at the Barishal Divisional Stadium nets, I saw something the television cameras never show. Curator Abdul Majid was on his knees, measuring sand beside the wicket, while at the other end a twenty-one-year-old pacer ran in alone. The stands were empty. No applause. Yet it is exactly this kind of boy's delivery that, two months later, sits at the centre of a broadcast deal worth crores. For twenty-two years I sat in the press box writing only the names of stars; when I came down to the balcony I understood that the real ledger belongs to the boy in the empty stand.

In the current franchise market everyone is shouting about price. Who was sold for how many crores, which franchise released which star—inside this noise a harmless truth gets buried: how deep Bangladesh's pace bench actually is, no scoreboard tells you. The received wisdom is that our pace attack means two or three names and the rest is empty. The media rotates the same four names every day. I am not dismissing that view entirely—I concede the load falls hardest on two or three names, and that is precisely why the question matters. But open the scorecards of the domestic league and the age-group circuit and a different picture appears. This piece asks you to look at that account, not at the stars.

First a number, then a counter-number standing against it. In the four or five domestic matches I watched live this season, several under-23 pacers bowled consistently between 135 and 140 kilometres per hour, and a few touched 145. I admit the sample is small, and pace is not everything in fast bowling—without line, length and seam movement, raw speed will not survive international cricket. But the question is not about pace; it is about opportunity. Whether at least five bowlers of comparable quality are waiting behind the one who gets the national call is the real indicator.

In the matches I have watched, the pipeline is clear. Under-19 to the Dhaka Premier League, then to the Bangladesh Cricket League—a pacer is forged across these three steps. The first teaches pace, the second technique, the third workload. Any board that runs all three steps with equal care never lets its bench run dry. In Bangladesh's case the first two steps are now fairly organised, but the third—especially load management—remains incomplete.

Here is my core argument: the health of a cricket nation is measured not by its first eleven but by the 23rd man on the bench. A star masks the bench; but if the bench is thin, the system is lying about its depth. In Bangladesh's case the bench is not thin—the problem is that this bench resource is not used properly. Look at other Asian sides. India's bench is so deep that when a star gets injured, a near-equal replacement walks in and the team's performance barely changes. Pakistan's bench brims with talent but lacks consistency. Bangladesh sits exactly in between—talent exists, a policy of consistent use does not.

To understand why it is not used, let me move to another scene. After the net session, when the pacers return to the dressing room, the groundstaff remain on the field. The ticket-taker stands for four hours on a rainy day and not a single ball is bowled. The tea vendor waits in the upper tier until the last over, because his sales only rise after the match ends. These workers' shifts are longer than the match itself. I asked one of them—a curator's assistant named Salam—whose interests they think about while preparing a pitch. He laughed and said, "Sir, we think about who will bat, and we build the pitch for him; the stars' names are not what we memorise." You see, seen from the balcony, the man outside the camera frame is the one who is right.

Now let me play a mathematical game nobody plays. Suppose we compare the workloads of three pacers in one series. One bowled 48 overs across five matches, another 28 overs across three, and the third did not play at all. From outside it looks like the second played less because he was worse. But the scorecard will show his economy and strike rate were better than the first man's. So on what basis was the decision made? The basis was star-dependence. We give the best bowler the most overs because we assume the rest cannot deliver. That very assumption erodes the bench from within. When a young pacer sees that even performing well earns him no opportunity, his edge begins to blunt. This is the silent killer of bench depth.

One more thing—a press-box habit still bothers me. We write about stars' injuries, but we do not write about why a domestic pacer is not getting a chance. Because domestic cricket is outside Dhaka, and our pen too stays inside Dhaka. That habit has to change.

Now the era of blockchain and fan tokens has brought a new turn. Across Asian cricket, franchises are selling fans digital ownership, voting rights and collectibles. The fan now dreams of buying a token and taking part in club decisions. My suspicion is that this digital ownership mostly never touches real power—just as the kid in the empty stand never enters the dressing room. The question is how much power this system gives the 23rd man on the bench, or whether it only gives him a colourful badge. If a franchise sells a token to a fan, does it ask that same fan why the team's fourth pacer is not playing? The answer is almost always no.

Contrarian Now let me stand against my own argument. I claim the bench is deep, but I could be wrong. Over the past two years Bangladesh's pace attack has repeatedly broken down through injury—a sign not of depth but of fragility. If the workload management of Taskin, Mustafizur and Shoriful is weak, then even with six bowlers only two will end up playing, and they will break down. My critics will point exactly here, and they will be right. So for my argument to hold, I must accept one condition: depth must be measured not on paper but in load management and a policy of giving opportunity. It is easy to tell romantic stories about the crowd, but if the crowd itself loses through the system's mistake, my balcony emotion is of no use. Playing a young pacer for three matches and then benching him for two months is not depth—it is waste.

Takeaway So here is my testable prediction: if Bangladesh reach the semi-finals of any major Asian tournament over the next two years, the reason will not be the stars of the first eleven—it will be those from the bench who win matches. And if the turnaround comes from the bench, that will prove the system did not lie. The question now sits with every cricket board in Asia: are you buying stars, or building the 23rd man?