'This is Bangladesh’s best Test team in a very long time'

Indian cricket commentator and analyst Harsha Bhogle has described the 16-man Bangladesh squad for the upcoming two-Test series against India as the best he has seen from the country in a long time, expressing hope that the Tigers would put up a strong fight against the hosts.

"I genuinely believe this is the best Test team I have seen from them [Bangladesh] for a very, very long time," Bhogle remarked in a video posted on his YouTube channel today.

He praised Bangladesh's pace attack and highlighted the team's batting depth and flexibility.

"No. 1 they've got pace. Nahid Rana is one of the most exciting bowlers to have emerged out of Bangladesh in recent times. Every time you see genuine pace, there's something about it, you go wow. We saw him getting a lot of good Pakistan batters hopping.

"Hasan Mahmud picked up wickets there and this is another opportunity. I wish not, but maybe a last opportunity for Taskin [Ahmed] to come here and show everyone why so many of us rated him highly.

"They've got three genuine quicks but the reason I rate them even higher is because if you look at that top eight, they've got two people who can keep wickets there, both of whom good enough to play purely as batters in this lineup and two accomplished spin bowling allrounders. Shakib [Al Hasan], of course, and increasingly every time you see him he looks better, I'm talking about Mehedi Miraz.

"If you look at their 5, 6, 7, 8, Mushfiqur, Shakib, Liton Das and Miraz, they all are batting one number below where they can and that's that's a general test you do when you look at a batting lineup, are players batting higher than they should or are players batting lower than they can. In this Bangladesh lineup, they're all batting lower than they can, which is a very good indicator of batting depth and batting strength."