It is so often the other way round in Pakistan cricket. A seasoned, perhaps humdrum group of batters who have never quite realised their potential being dragged out of trouble by a fresh young fast bowler that supporters desperately want to believe is the real deal. An improbably fast seam bowler, impossibly young, fresh off the production line and, with no surge protection, extended beyond their load-bearing capacity in service of the now. Built to excite, not to last. That is the Pakistan cricket model.
Which is why this Test in Mirpur has felt almost like upside-down land. There was nothing fresh, exciting, or even particularly young about Pakistan's fast bowlers to arouse that kind of interest. All three made their debuts nearly a decade ago, and none of them bowls especially fast. Shaheen Shah Afridi's high ceiling is undercut somewhat by his palpable lukewarmness to the format, Hasan Ali's inconsistency is probably baked in by now, while Mohammad Abbas, effective as he is, is so atypical of the Pakistani fast bowling stereotype that Pakistan have never fully accepted the idea of him as a legitimate member of a pace attack.
The anticipation here was all at the other end. Pakistan's top three, comprising two debutants and Imam-ul-Haq looked vulnerable in any case, and especially more so when a staid day one bowling performance left them with 413 to claw back. Azan Awais needed to find a way to allow his nerves to settle, something to show him he belonged at this level he had been suddenly promoted to at 21.
Keep on dreaming. Off the first ball he tried to get off the mark, Imam nearly ran him out when, to Awais's puzzlement, he simply refused to take a routine single off a deft little nudge to the covers. Awais was left scrambling to find his way back, and gave his head a little wobble. Maybe that's how the pros did it in international cricket.
And then he found himself on strike when the moment they had been planning for happened. Awais had spent a long time sitting amongst the batting group talking about Nahid Rana's bowling, steeling himself to face a bowler whose speed simply isn't found on Pakistan's red-ball circuit at the moment. They knew, in Imam's words later on "what was coming", much like intrepid cyclone chasers know exactly what's coming when they decide to hunker down and experience one.
But the mere act of a meteorologist - or cricket analyst - telling you what to expect makes not a jot of difference to how your body will react upon experiencing it. Rana landed the first one short at a pace significantly higher than anything Taskin Ahmed and Ebadot Hossain had mustered. And frankly, higher than anything Awais will have faced in domestic cricket in Pakistan. When he failed to get on top of it and it just missed his bat. He knew what was coming, but it didn't stop the ball from leaving a shiner on his helmet and almost giving him a concussion.
But Awais also knew what was coming afterwards. All that domestic red-ball cricket he has played over the past two years may not effectively scale up internationally, but no Pakistan player has been left worse off for playing it anyway. In the first couple of years since their built-up body of local first-class work saw Saud Shakeel and Salman Agha called up internationally, they were statistically Pakistan's best Test batters, at one point accounting for Pakistan becoming the most prolific runscoring team for batting positions in the lower middle order (5-7).
And in that time, Awais played all that red-ball cricket; he understood that time at the crease makes things easier. He has scored more hundreds and more runs, than any other player in first-class cricket since the 2024-25 season. Bangladesh in Mirpur may have been a different challenge in quality, but not quite in its character.
And it is character, for now, that will encourage Pakistan about Awais, much more so than a bright start, or even that debut hundred. When Rana pitched the following ball just as short, he rocked back to hook it to fine leg rather than get out of the way. His comfort at the crease growing with each over, he even turned Rana's short delivery into his own personal strength, dispatching three of them to boundaries either side of square late on the second day to hit him out of the attack once and for all. He showed, this morning, that that ability had not deserted him, rolling his wrists over another Rana delivery at the ribs to send him into the 90s. Since that blow to the head, Rana bowled 22 short balls at Awais, who took 27 runs off them, including five boundaries.
It was fitting, then, that it was against Rana that Awais brought his hundred up. Finally, the Bangladesh quick let go of that line, and pitched one up, allowing Awais to open the bat up for a gentle single to bring up what he has made a habit of: a red-ball hundred.
It may be the first of many for Pakistan, but, for supporters more used to reserving such excitement for their fast bowlers, they know how quickly things can change. And while they take a break from their love-hate relationship with the bowling attack, Awais showed, briefly, that there might be youthful joy to be found further up the order, too.