"I am always ready. Let's see what is in my destiny, InshaAllah, and hopefully I can play the match."
Those were Shoriful Islam's words upon arriving in Mackay, having watched from the sidelines as Bangladesh completed their greatest Test victory in Darwin without him.
Ruled out of the series opener with a hamstring injury sustained during the Zimbabwe tour, Shoriful had to settle for a place in the celebratory pictures rather than the playing XI when Bangladesh beat Australia by nine wickets.
He insisted he carried no regrets over missing that historic match.
"I'm very happy to have been part of such a victory, at least I made it into the pictures, even though I wasn't in the XI. It feels really good," Shoriful had said, before declaring himself fully fit and available for selection ahead of Mackay.
That declaration proved timely. Recalled in place of Ebadot Hossain, it marked a turning point in his stop-start red-ball career.
Shoriful walked out to bat at No.11, with Bangladesh in complete disarray after losing the toss and being asked to bat first by Pat Cummins on a green, seam-friendly Great Barrier Reef Arena surface.
Mitchell Starc tore through the top order in devastating fashion, finishing with six for 12, the third best figures of his career, completing his five-wicket haul in just 22 balls, the sixth fastest in Test history, as four of Bangladesh's first six batters departed without scoring.
Bangladesh were eventually bowled out for a mere 64, yet amid the ruins, Shoriful produced an unlikely rearguard, striking three boundaries on his way to 14 from 19 balls to finish as his side's top scorer – the highest score coming from the very bottom of the order.
He became only the second Bangladeshi No.11 batter to top score in a Test innings, after Talha Jubair's 31 against India back in 2004, and the 13th such instance across nearly 150 years of Test cricket, a rare and unwanted club to enter.
His knock, combined with a defiant 25-run last-wicket stand alongside Taijul Islam, helped Bangladesh avoid slipping below their own lowest-ever Test total of 43, having slumped to nine wickets down for just 39 at one desperate stage of the innings.
History offers little reason for Bangladesh to hope. Sides bowled out for under 100 in the first innings have gone on to win a Test on only seven occasions in the format's long history, four of those coming in the 19th century alone.
The most recent example came at Lord's in 2019, when England were dismissed for just 85 by Ireland before rallying to bowl the Irish out for a mere 38 in their second-innings chase.
Bangladesh will know such recoveries remain rare rather than routine, yet Shoriful's evening burst with the ball offered genuine grounds for belief that the Mackay Test is not over yet.
Introduced into the attack in only the eighth over of Australia’s reply, Shoriful wasted little time repaying his captain’s faith, removing Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne in the same over—Head bowled via an inside edge, and Labuschagne bowled when a delivery down the leg side deflected off his thigh pad and onto the stumps.
Steve Smith and Cameron Green briefly steadied the innings with a stand of 77, before Shoriful returned to break the partnership, trapping Smith leg before for 42. Mehidy Hasan Miraz then removed Alex Carey, exposing Australia's middle and lower order to further pressure.
What followed was a spell few could have anticipated. Shoriful took three wickets in five balls during the final hour, dismissing Beau Webster for a golden duck, having Cummins caught behind, then bowling Starc with the very next delivery.
Shoriful took particular satisfaction in removing Cummins, who had struck him with a bouncer earlier in the day.
"It felt good, because he had hit me on the shoulder with a bouncer," Shoriful said with a smile, before reflecting warmly on dismissing Starc soon after.
"I've watched him since my age group days. I really like his bowling and swing. Now I'm playing in the same match as him, and we've both taken six wickets. That feels really good," he said, matching his childhood favourite figure for figure on the same afternoon.
Commentator Kerry O'Keeffe summed up the remarkable symmetry on air, noting that nobody could have imagined Shoriful producing a performance so reminiscent of Starc.
Of the 18 wickets to fall on day one, the two left-arm seamers shared 12 between them, with Shoriful proving every bit as effective as his idol despite lacking Starc's raw pace.
Shoriful's six for 35 marked the best bowling figures of his Test career, comfortably surpassing his previous best of three for 28, and made him only the second Bangladeshi pacer, after Hasan Mahmud in Darwin, to claim a five-wicket haul on Australian soil.
The achievement also placed him in rare historical company. Starc and Shoriful became only the fourth pair of bowlers in nearly 150 years of men's Test cricket to each take six wickets on the opening day of the same match, and just the third instance of two left-arm pacers doing so together.
Shoriful also became the first cricketer in Test history to top score for his team from No.11 while simultaneously taking the most wickets in the same innings, a double that had never previously occurred across nearly a century and a half of the format.
The 25-year-old had gone seven Tests without a place in the XI after Bangladesh’s series opener against the West Indies in November 2024, before returning for the second Test against Pakistan in Sylhet this past May.
That comeback match had brought little reward, with Shoriful managing just a single wicket in the second innings even as the rest of Bangladesh's attack shared plenty among themselves in Pakistan's first innings.
His previous three-wicket haul in an innings had come earlier still, back in June 2023, in a one-off Test against Afghanistan where he claimed three for 28 – his best in Tests before Mackay.
Before that, his only other three-wicket return had come in the first innings of the historic Mount Maunganui Test against New Zealand, a match ultimately remembered for Ebadot's second innings six-wicket haul that sealed a famous away win for Bangladesh.
Between these scattered highlights, Shoriful had managed only 10 wickets across his previous 10 Test innings coming into this Test, a modest return that made his eventual burst all the more striking given how long it had been building beneath the surface.
That drought certainly did not extend to the white-ball formats. Only two months earlier, Shoriful had produced career-best figures of six for 48 against Australia in an ODI in Mirpur, though Bangladesh ultimately lost that match in the last over.
Reflecting afterwards on that painful defeat despite his personal heroics, Shoriful had made clear where his priorities lay, a sentiment he would echo again in Mackay.
"Right now, I am not overjoyed that I have taken five wickets. If we win the match, then I will be very happy," he said.
Explaining the conditions that fuelled his burst, Shoriful pointed to both the pitch and Mackay's swirling wind. "The new ball was swinging for almost 20 to 25 overs. They took advantage of that. The ball is still moving after 30 overs. This is helpful for our fast bowlers," he said.
"We were bowling from that end. The wind was against us there, so the ball was swinging a little more," he added, before crediting detailed homework as much as conditions for his breakthrough.
"When I came here to play Test cricket, I watched a lot of videos and prepared on how to bowl to each batter, and I got success."
The numbers highlight his growing importance to the attack this year. Across all formats in 2026, Shoriful has taken 28 wickets in just 13 innings, a return bettered only by Nahid Rana's 44 wickets in 16 innings and Taskin Ahmed's 30 wickets in 22 innings.
That output has come despite Shoriful featuring in only 12 of Bangladesh’s 27 matches across all formats this year, with Mustafizur Rahman often occupying the left-arm seamer’s spot in white-ball cricket.
Should Shoriful add one more wicket when play resumes on Sunday, he would join an exclusive group of only four Bangladeshi bowlers to have taken seven wickets in a men's Test innings, a list currently made up entirely of spinners.
Left-arm spinner Taijul has taken seven wickets in an innings three times, including an eight-for-39 haul against Zimbabwe in 2014, which remains the best innings figures by a Bangladeshi bowler in Test cricket.
If Shoriful takes two more wickets on the second morning, he would match Taijul as the second Bangladeshi to take eight in an innings.
At stumps on the opening day, Australia stood on 165 for eight, holding a lead of 101 runs, with Green unbeaten on 51 and Nathan Lyon not out on 10.
The tourists remain firmly in control despite their own batting horrors. Should Shoriful and the rest of the attack wrap up Australia's innings before the lead extends much further, Bangladesh could yet find a route back into a match that once looked beyond saving.