It was almost thirteen years back when a small boy from Amin Bazar, Mirpur was taken by his mother to the Dhanmondi Cricket ground commonly known as the Abahani ground a few years after Bangladesh won the ICC trophy.
The information which most Bangladeshi fans don’t know about the young boy who was suppose to act in the movies as a child actor is that the boy is none other than Bangladesh cricket’s latest find Arafat Sunny.
The young boy with long hair traded in his celluloid dreams for a life of sport and went on to play cricket when he started practicing under Dipu Roy Chowdhury and was almost immediately selected for the Bangladesh U-13 team touring Shiliguri, India in the early 2000.
After that there was no looking back for the left arm spinner as he went on to play for all of Bangladesh’s age level teams. At the same time the young spinner started playing first class cricket back in 2001 for Dhaka Division.
The left arm spinner soon became a regular performer in the domestic circuit as he played for many big clubs and often stood in the top five wicket takers in club cricket. The 27-year-old has a lot of experience behind him as having played 61 first class matches taking 231 wickets.
However Sunny went through a tough period when his bowling action was questioned and the left arm spinner feared it would all come to an end, however he came back strong and worked on his action and returned to perform again in the domestic arena.
Luck was against him as Bangladesh found themselves with a plethora of left arm spinners who were also performing well. His long wait ended during the recent Sri Lanka series and he has already turned a few heads in the process.
The seasoned campaigner looked composed on his debut in the T20’s claiming two wickets from his three overs giving away only 17 runs and went on to bowl brilliantly in the second match where the left arm spinner got a wicket from his two overs more importantly gave only eight runs.
It was just a matter of time until he made his ODI debut after such performance and the spinner made his ODI debut yesterday in style taking two wickets and was unlucky as Sohag Gazi dropped an easy catch denying his third wicket.
The selectors did not pick Sunny for the World T20 Championship squad as they opted to go with four seamers. This is another setback for Sunny but he is used to playing the waiting game. After his recent performances he will have one eye on a permanent place in the Bangladesh team and they may well just rue leaving him out.