Allan Donald: Bangladesh fast bowlers 'have established the pack mentality'

During the course of the Chattogram Test, Bangladesh's fast bowlers reached the mark of 167 wickets for the year, their best collection across formats in a calendar year in over two decades of playing international cricket. Those are good numbers but, more importantly, indicate that Bangladesh, a spin-bowling country for so long, are now also finding match-winners among the quicks. Allan Donald has played a big part in the transformation, and he calls the change "significant".

Donald, who joined Bangladesh in March this year, found a conservative group of boys who were fearful of trying to be aggressive. There was a bit of success in New Zealand before Donald came into the picture, when Taskin Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain and Shoriful Islam scripted a famous win in Mount Maunganui. Still, they had to prove it wasn't a fluke.

"The growth we have shown in less than one year is so significant," Donald tells ESPNcricinfo. "It is a great statistic. I always look at strike rates very closely. When I took over as the South Africa fast-bowling coach [in 2011], I was blown out of my boots to see that South Africa was dead last in the powerplay strike rate. They were striking at 52 in ODIs. They were completely conservative. So I had to break the shackles, change perceptions and mindsets.

"It was the same here [in Bangladesh]. Conservative, scared of making mistakes. Not being ruthless enough. Just reluctant to try to do something a bit more aggressive. I am hoping to see this group get bigger and grow more. This group is mingling really well. We call it dovetail. If one guy doesn't succeed, another does the cleaning up. We have established the pack mentality. We all buy into the same mindset. There has to be a leader if we want people to talk about the attack. There needs to be other men to help each other. This attack has dovetailed well."

Bangladesh's pacers' strike rate in Test cricket this year is currently their second best since 2013, while they have their biggest annual haul in Test cricket ever and their joint-second highest in T20Is. The numbers in their favourite format, ODIs, might not be as impressive but, all the same, in all three of Bangladesh's major victories this year, fast bowling has played a vital hand.

Ebadot's six-wicket haul led to the team's Test win in Mount Maunganui. Taskin won the Player-of-the-Series award in Bangladesh's ODI series win in South Africa. Ebadot and Mustafizur Rahman bowled key spells during their ODI series win against India at home earlier this month. Khaled Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud and Shoriful provide options, giving the bowling group its depth.

Together, they form the most improved aspect of Bangladesh cricket of the last two years.

'The players have bought into the business plan'
Donald gelled with the boys quickly; you can't tell you are around one of the greats of the game when you see him helping out in almost every aspect of the training and match preparation.

In the time the ODI and Test series against India, he requested the BCB to send a group of promising fast bowlers and spinners to Chattogram. He oversaw sessions with them and worked with them in the nets alongside spin-bowling coach Rangana Herath.

"I coach mindset. I can be technical if I want to, but at this level, you can have the best plans in the world, but you must have the desire and the mongrel in your belly, you won't get past anyone," Donald says. "I think slowly but surely we are starting to see this growing in this group. This excites me."

Donald is most excited at how the senior team's fast-bowling group agreed to do it his way. On his first tour with Bangladesh, Donald posed an uncomfortable question to the players…

"Fortunately, most of the fast-bowling group said that they will give a crack at this plan in all formats: 'we will change our way we approach things, to give ourselves the best chance of succeeding'," Donald says. "I asked all the seamers in South Africa: 'what makes you the most fragile?' One thing that came out was that, 'we don't bowl too many bumpers; we are not aggressive enough, we are very wary of going for runs'. We changed that thought-process completely.

"It makes me proud that they all talk the same language. It is across formats. It shows that the players have bought into the business plan. They have given themselves the best possible chance of succeeding."

'Ebadot loves the stage; I love the salute'
With the plans and the roadmap in place, the fast bowlers had to produce the goods. They formed a WhatsApp group with Donald, where the first message was to make it the tightest fast-bowling group in Bangladesh's history.

The numbers prove that they are on the right path.

Two factors have stood out: how others stepped up when one was injured or out of form, and the overall improvement across formats. Taskin has improved as a Test and T20I bowler, while Ebadot's first foray in white-ball cricket has gone well.

"We missed Taskin in the two ODIs against India. Ebadot just jumps in with both feet. We want guys to break the house down at every opportunity," Donald says. "He has made things happen all the time. He just seems to mow the house down. He loves the stage; I love the salute.

"I saw Ebadot's six-for in New Zealand, and heard his story of winning a fast-bowling prize. I think he has the knack of being a partnership breaker, a possible match-winner. An exciting young tearaway who is passionate about what he does. Ebadot keeps putting his hand up.

"He has come from nowhere and has taken the international stage by storm. He listens well. He practices his boots off. I gave him time off [before the first Test against India] to get him off the training paddock. He felt a bit tired after the third ODI so I didn't want to see him bowl for a couple of days."

'Taskin is a magnificent fast bowler'
As noted before on ESPNcricinfo, Bangladesh's most noticeably improved fast bowler is Taskin. The story of his comeback has been inspiring, particularly how he became a fitter and better bowler after shaking off depression during the pandemic. After three years in the wilderness, he came back, and in the second year of Taskin 2.0, he opened up to Donald about his ultimate goal.

"Taskin's words were: 'I don't want to be recognised as average, I want to be one of the greats'. He has all the qualities. He leads from the front. Talks really well. He is extremely passionate, a magnificent fast bowler," Donald says. "He has a natural outswinger, bowls a heavy ball; He gets stuck in the contest. He didn't hesitate to take over the leadership of the fast bowling group when I asked him for the first time nine months ago. I need people like that."

The most experienced of the group is Mustafizur, but he has also been under pressure the most of late. But he did seem to move his game up a notch during the India series, and Donald said it was down to T20 coach Sridharan Sriram and Shrinivas Chandrasekaran, the performance analyst, working with him.

"Sriram and Shrinivas spotted that in his release point of his slower ball, his palm was facing the batter," Donald says. "It needed to be more side-on so that the palm was facing the off side on his point of release. He bowled a lot of overs to get that ball to come out softer and with a bit more bite. He worked really hard on nailing yorkers.

"He is a class act. When we needed a guy to step up against a world-class player in Rohit Sharma, Fizz came to the party and produced a great yorker to win the series for us. I love working with him. Mustafiz has been around the world. You write him off at your own peril. I know how hard he is working right now."

Fast bowling stopped being a topic of discussion in Bangladesh cricket six years ago when the team management decided to prepare raging turners in Dhaka. It made fast bowlers almost redundant - they already bowled very little in domestic cricket.

Courtney Walsh, the fast-bowling coach at the time, had to sit through a few Tests with no quick bowling on view. After Walsh, Ottis Gibson had an impact with the players connecting with his methods, but Donald has taken it to the next level.

"I have taken out the fear factor of making mistakes," he says. "I say it almost every day: don't worry about what I think sitting in the stands. I have been there. I have experienced your heartaches and mistakes. It is absolutely okay to make mistakes, as long as we give it a 100% crack out there. It doesn't matter if you go for six."

Donald is now hoping to expand the pool, so replacements are around at all times. It won't be easy, but Bangladesh have moved from nothing to a place where they have six or seven good quicks. The curve is certainly going in the right direction.