Bangladesh finally found a win in the Super 12 stage of a T20 World Cup with their nine-run win over Netherlands, and the pacers were the ones who brought them that.
Taskin Ahmed was the star of the show with figures of 4-25, his best in the game's shortest format. Hasan Mahmud aptly supported him with 2-15, and some excellent fielding helped too.
But what will be concerning for Bangladesh is that their batters failed to turn up again, as they could only manage 144-8 against an ordinary Dutch bowling attack.
Their openers, Najmul Hossain Shanto and Soumya Sarkar, brought them a good start as they put 43 in 5.1 overs, the highest opening stand for the Tigers for over a year.
But from there on, it was a slump. Liton Das could not adjust to the added bounce Hobart offered, struggled throughout his brief innings, and was finally gone when he failed to time a short-ish delivery.
Shakib Al Hasan then tried to take on a fielder at the mid-wicket boundary, despite the boundary being the biggest around that zone. Expectedly, he was caught at the boundary.
Afif Hossain held the innings together for Bangladesh, and if not for his 38 off 27 deliveries, the damage could have been too big for the pacers to recover.
Nurul Hasan Sohan also struggled, but a final flourish from Mosaddek Hossain took them beyond 140.
From there, it was a magical show from Taskin as he took two wickets with the first two deliveries of the Dutch innings, and two pieces of incredible fielding from Afif and Najmul ensured the Dutch were 15-4.
Then, Mahmud aptly covered the middle overs, and while they leaked some runs at the end, Shakib & co managed to see off the win.
They face South Africa in their second match in Sydney on Thursday, but they will need answers to some questions posed by the first match.
The first is their fifth bowler. Shakib used Mosaddek and Soumya as his fifth bowling option against Netherlands, and they went for 43.
Against a much stronger batting lineup of the Proteas, Bangladesh will need to bring in another specialist bowler, and Nasum Ahmed would be the ideal pick.
That would leave their long batting order a bit depleted, but the batters are failing anyway, and it's far more important to secure 20 overs of bowling than have an extra cushion to fall on during batting.
The next thing is their batting order. Soumya did not look in touch with the bat, and neither did Liton. However, the latter hit a fifty opening the innings in New Zealand, and it would be in the team's best interest to pick him as an opener.
The same thing can be said about Afif. The young left-handed batter has been Bangladesh's best T20 batsman for some time now, and he should be playing as many balls as possible. A solution might be to drop Soumya and promote Liton to opening and Afif to number four.
Bangladesh will also need to figure out their death bowling. While Taskin and Mahmud are great picks at the start of the innings, the former is weakest at the end, and the other is yet inexperienced.
Mustafiz is a sure shot at death bowling, but Shakib must somehow find the overs from the other end. Or else their good start will end soon.
Bangladesh will hope they can continue on their win and cause South Africa trouble on Thursday. If they can, it would indeed be historic.
