The Litton factor

It has happened twice now.

Since Litton Das took over as Bangladesh's T20 International captain, he has been injured twice.

Bangladesh's campaign as a team has faltered, derailed and fallen apart for the same amount of time.

The first instance was at the 2025 Asia Cup when Litton got injured midway through a promising campaign that later collapsed as Bangladesh missed both his captaincy and his batting in the middle overs.

It happened for the second occasion in the recently concluded T20I contest against Australia, where Litton was injured again — resulting in Bangladesh losing the series.

Bangladesh previously still lost T20 series with Litton present in the side.

But both the aforementioned occasions exposed a significant dependency syndrome in the batting department, particularly through the middle overs, where Litton's role is to guide his side to a position from where the younger batters can accelerate in hunt of a competitive total.

That platform never materialised against Australia.

Bangladesh lost their way in the first match of the series, where nine of the 10 batters fell to Australian spin as the hosts were bowled out for 131 with an over to spare.

In the second game, chasing 196, Bangladesh fell short by seven runs as several batters got starts, rambling around in the 30s and 40s, but no one converted those into a big score — precisely the role Litton is entrusted to play in this set-up, underlining his importance to the side.

Additionally, Bangladesh's batting succumbed again in the final T20I on a used wicket, where the hosts needed a partnership from the top-order but could not find one, stumbling to 109-8 with Towhid Hridoy scoring the majority with an unbeaten 61.

"Of course we have missed Litton," interim pace bowling coach Talha Jubair said after the first match, when asked about the captain's importance.

He was not alone in that assessment.

Bangladesh batter Parvez Hossain Emon offered a similar view after the second clash.

"Yes, dada (Litton) plays that role really well. So, to be honest, we are missing him quite a bit," he said.

Bangladesh head coach Phil Simmons expressed frustration after the series when queried about the batting shortcomings, saying, “We have to play properly, and the batsmen still have to bat even though he can get out on one ball on any day. So they still have to bat, and today, the only person that showed that the pressure didn't get to him was the captain (Hridoy).”

However, Simmons also thinks Bangladesh got better at handling the middle overs despite recent record suggesting otherwise.

“I think we have improved. When I first came, that was the biggest part. I think we have improved and the guys have been working on that a lot. I don't think it hampered us too much in the last couple of series, but this series, especially today and the first game, was tough. In the second game, we fell back a little bit, but we still managed to keep up there and come back in the last four overs. It has been a problem, but they've been working very hard on it,” Simmons noted.

It is not just the T20I side that has to learn to cope without him.

Bangladesh will have to settle playing Test cricket for the time being without the 31-year-old wicketkeeper-batter, who was in sublime form in the longer format, scoring 126 and 69 in the last Test against Pakistan in Sylhet.

A Bangladesh Cricket Board source indicated that Litton's recovery from the muscle tear sustained during the last One Day International against Australia in Mirpur will take longer to heal — so much so that he would miss the solitary Zimbabwe Test, starting 28 June.

In Litton’s absence, the young stumper-batter Mahidul Islam Ankon got a call up to the Test squad and is likely to don the gloves in the one-off Test against Zimbabwe, after having played his debut game against South Africa at Chattogram in 2024.

For a side that has now twice seen its T20I fortunes collapse in Litton's absence, the bigger concern may be how it copes without him in whites in a few days' time — a format where his runs, and his calm, have proven to be invaluable.