Enigmatic. Over-rated. Talented. Misunderstood.
These are generally the words that cricket fans, team-mates, coaches and journalists in Bangladesh use to describe Litton Das and Soumya Sarkar. On song, they are two of the most breathtaking strokemakers in cricket currently. Not on song, they are a source of frustration.
Both happened in the second ODI against Sri Lanka in Chattogram. Litton hesitantly chipped the third ball of the match to be caught at square leg. His second duck in a row and third in the last five innings across formats. Soumya struck 68 with 11 fours, a playlist of punchy cover drives, leaned-into straight drives, sweeps and ramps. When he fell with the switch hit, caught brilliantly on the deep-point boundary, Soumya looked shocked. He often doesn't get starts like this, so it was disappointing for him to give it away.
Soumya reached 2,000 runs in ODIs during this innings. He has taken the fewest innings among Bangladesh batters to reach this mark, but it has taken him nearly 10 years. It sums up his international career. He is a force to reckon with, but only when the mood suits him.
After a long time outside the team, Soumya has shown good form since December last year when he struck a career-best 169 against New Zealand. He threatened to break free in the T20Is in Sylhet but didn't get a big one, not unlike his performances in the BPL for Fortune Barishal.
Litton, meanwhile, is going through a prolonged funk. He hasn't scored a fifty in the last ten ODI innings. He made two half-centuries in the World Cup after an ordinary first nine months in 2023. He hasn't followed up on his 2022 form, his best year in international cricket.
His mode of dismissals are worrying. Out of the 18 times he has been caught in the last 12 months, seven of them were to fielders inside the 30-yard circle.
Litton has shown a tendency of not committing fully when attempting aggressive shots, which might explain why the timing and the power he usually has are not working quite so well right now. He has been caught behind six times, and that's not because he has been reaching out away from the body. Litton has played switch hits and hooks to the wicketkeeper. He has been caught in the deep five times during the last 12 months. He sent catches to long-on and long-off against Australia and India in the World Cup when he looked set for a big score.
Litton's confidence is the biggest visible difference between his woeful present and his imperious 2022. He also curbed plenty of shots after he was dropped for a Test match against Pakistan in 2021. It was a sobering moment for him as he went back to first-class cricket and worked with one of his childhood mentors to fix things. Litton marshalling Bangladesh's batting in their miraculous Mount Maunganui Test has now faded from memory.
Litton's downward spiral has come at a time of Soumya's long-awaited upswing in form. He made a surprising comeback to the Bangladesh team last year. That it coincided with Chandika Hathurusinghe's return to Bangladesh as head coach isn't a huge surprise. Soumya had impressed Hathurusinghe very early in his first stint as the head coach, in 2014.
Soumya has always struggled for consistency. Even so, selectors and team managements have always believed that he had potential, so they kept bringing him back time and again. In different formats, in different roles, in different batting positions.
When Hathurusinghe returned last year, it is understood that he asked about Soumya early on. Soumya returned to the ODI side against New Zealand in September, but there was no sign of the old Soumya. He missed the World Cup squad, but in New Zealand in December, he finally played a knock that many had been waiting for.
Soumya's 169 is Bangladesh's highest individual score in an overseas ODI. It was a magnificent effort in conditions where the side has often struggled. Soumya struck 22 fours and two sixes, while the rest of the side could muster 122 runs between them. Bangladesh lost the game but Soumya's talent, after nine years, was vindicated.
Litton, however, is going through another lull. Would it lead the new selection committee to drop him like he was dropped in 2021? It seems unlikely at this point but Bangladesh do have two more openers in their squad. If a break helps Litton, it could become a reality.