Let us be controlled while praising Elias Sunny

Yesterday, a young man named Elias Sunny, from Chittagong, hit the news headlines with his brilliant exhibition of spin bowling as he made the West Indian batsmen toil hard with skill, art and accuracy. For a Bangladeshi cricketer to make his debut at the age of 25 is quite unusual but this young man has made his Test debut after spending a hard time in the domestic arena for seven years.

Most of the cricketers in Bangladesh make their debut without any domestic exposure and for which they just get lost in the long run. But from the word go Sunny has proved that he is well prepared to handle any sort of pressures as for a split second none could realize that this young man is playing his first Test match. His body language had the professionalism and toughness to challenge the biggest challenger in the world of cricket.

And the reward of this attitude had been seven wickets in the match in all with a six wicket haul in the first innings. The Chittagong track offered sharp turn and even being a debutant, Sunny was quick to exploit the conditions with extreme merit. He is slower than his team-mate Shakib Al Hasan and gives the ball a lot more air, and was threatening when he came round the wicket, angling the ball in and getting it to spit away from a good length.

His courage to give the ball enough flight is praise worthy and his temperament in his first appearance has been like a genuine professional cricketer. Never for a split second you would notice a touch of rawness and fear of playing the first Test match, but with each spell, with each over and with each ball, Sunny came out to cast a magical spell with his spin bowling over the Caribbean batsmen.

The reason of this professional attitude has been the reward of watching the ups and downs in the domestic cricket where Sunny has spent almost nine years. It was in that domestic cricket, Elias Sunny, the smiling and charming Chittagong lad, has learned to be tough, he has learned not get frustrated with failures, he has learned to maintain the confidence every time, he has learned  to be positive. And for which beneath the charming smile there lays a sea of confidence, there lays an iron made mentality which always wants to hit the jackpot.

Players like Sunny prove again the importance of giving the best in domestic cricket and not get frustrated. In Bangladesh where there are names like Shakib, Razzak and Shuvo then it’s quite tough to get a call in the national squad. But patience and hard work has its rewards. At last the selectors responded to Sunny’s enduring hard work and patience in the form of consistent performance in the domestic circuit. Elias Sunny has arrived in Bangladesh cricket.

But to keep him going we too have some duties.

In 2005, in the two Test series against Zimbabwe, a young Bangladeshi spinner named Enamul Haque junior emerged in the scene with a bang by grabbing 18 wickets in the series and was being regarded as the perfect replacement of the ace Bangladeshi spin legend Mohammad Rafique. After his unique feat the newspapers, the cricket critics of the country started uninterrupted praises which simply led to the down fall of the young man who was simply undone by the enormous pressure of expectations. Enamul Haque is almost a history nowadays.

The media already have started to over praise Sunny. Yes, what Sunny has achieved deserves hurrah but that too should be within a limitation as it shouldn’t put extra pressure of expectations on a young cricketer to get crumbled. Even though, I believe that Sunny is mature enough to handle such pressures but still there should be certain amount of control in praising as, when, we Bangladeshis start praising our men we tend to make them sit high in the sky but it takes a second to drag them down from the sky to the ground after a failure.

Elias Sunny is an asset and it’s the duty of the board, the duty of the media, the duty of the journalists and the duty of the Tiger fans to back such a gem every time, even in his hard times.

Let us help Elias Sunny in keeping his feet on the ground by being controlled with our praises.

Thank You

Faisal Caesar