The long and winding road to Bangladesh's T20 renaissance

They have lifted their batting from the depths they were in, but will it be enough in a supercharged T20 world?

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The stats and graphs are updated as of September 21.

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Saif Hassan was batting at a run a ball after facing 24 deliveries. Bangladesh actually had an okayish Powerplay, but India immediately put the squeeze on once the field restrictions were over.

Saif then smashes Axar Patel for a six towards deep midwicket, and also hits one down the ground off Varun Chakaravarthy in back-to-back overs. There are sixes happening at his end, but wickets at the other.

This makes it more shocking. Usually, at the slightest sign of danger, they turn everything for singles. Whereas, Saif slaps sixes.

After Emon’s early poor form in this tournament, Bangladesh were eyeing a replacement. Mike Haysman said on commentary that Bangladesh liked what they saw of Saif in the nets. They took a gamble on him; he took many gambles against India.

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At a certain point, maths always wins. Blocking the good balls makes sense, as does rotating the strike or looking for a gap to score a boundary. But as the great West Indian side showed us, a six is worth more than anything else.

From 2019 to 2023, Bangladesh averaged less than four sixes per innings every year.

Suryakumar Yadav hit 2.16 sixes per innings, while Jos Buttler smashed 1.49 of them in the same five-year period. The two of them combined don’t even face eight overs.

Those two are among the greatest batters to have graced the format. But in less than half the match, they’re scoring more sixes than your entire team. This was a massive issue.

In 2024, you see a flicker. They finally hit more than five sixes per game for the first time in their history. And they’ve gone a step further this year, hitting close to seven sixes per match.

This is uncharted territory. Bangladesh are on the verge of being a real T20 team.

If we go by the raw numbers, 2025 is their quickest scoring year. But with T20 being faster in this era, that can be deceiving.

The global strike rate for the other top 10 international sides is over 140 in 2025. However, Bangladesh have reduced the gap this year when compared to the previous two, but they’re still more than 10 short of the mean.

They’re faster, but so is everyone else.

And the difference is even more stark when we look at Bangladesh against those teams.

So is this the six-hitting revolution Bangladeshis have been waiting for, or is it just that they’re going faster in a world that is very sped up?

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Bangladeshi wickets have historically encouraged slow-scoring rates. Just looking at the raw strike rates can be deceptive. Their batters have a positive true strike rate for the first time after 2016. But more importantly, it increased by almost 15 points from last year.

However, they also played against the UAE and Netherlands. They actually lost 1-2 versus the UAE in Sharjah, but still scored at 9.3 runs per over. They beat the Dutch, scoring at a very good clip.

Against the top 10 ranked sides, their true strike rate is barely more than the expected. However, going from -12 to slightly above neutral is a dramatic turn. They may still not be a good batting team, but we cannot deny that they are in a much better place now.

Strike rate differentials tell us how quick or slow a team scores compared to their opponents. It also gives an idea of the team’s bowling strength. This year, they’ve scored at about six runs per 100 balls slower than the sides they were up against - their second-best performance since 2014. In 2024, they were stuck at almost -20.

But 2023 is interesting, as that’s when they had the least difference. That was a year they went 7-2 in 10 matches against the top teams. However, five of those wins came at home, as they beat England and Afghanistan without dropping a game. And they chased four times in those, which isn’t the true test of high-intent batting - especially in low-scoring games.

After their series loss in the UAE, they were clean-swept when they toured Pakistan. However, they scored at 8.64 runs per over against them, which is the third-fastest they have ever scored in a bilateral series against a Full Member nation.

They went on a bit of a winning run after that, beating Sri Lanka away, Pakistan at home (on slow pitches in Mirpur) and then Afghanistan and Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup. So they now have six wins and as many losses against teams more or less on their level.