Cocky, outspoken, irreplacable

It's time for spring cleaning at the Shere Bangla National stadium. The stadium has not seen any international action in the last four months and two days before the start of the home season, it is still dressed in ICC World T20 branding. However, an army of cleaners - mostly women - is frantically at work in the stands and as the day rolls on, the rest of the troops join in to get the ground ready for the Saturday start. There are cobwebs to clear.

This is true for Bangladesh's cricket team as well. For them, 2014 has been a forgettable year after the gains made in 2012-13. Their two wins this year are sandwiched by double-digit losing streaks. They have lost one of their leading bowlers to the ICC's drive against suspect actions.

But like the fresh morning breeze that signals the approaching winter, a little bit of hope blows into the stadium too. Shakib Al Hasan is back, after being banned in July after a run-in with Chandika Hathurusingha, the team coach, and an altercation with a spectator in the home ODI series against India.

Adjusting his cap as he talks to the media, a smiling Shakib is honest about his team's strengths vis-à-vis Zimbabwe. "Bangladesh are the favourites to win the series as they are better in bowling and batting, and are playing at home," he says. "Fielding-wise, it's a bit 50-50, maybe 40-60".

Then he doles out the standard line. "You need to take 20 wickets to win a Test and all bowlers need to contribute".

For Bangladesh, taking 20 wickets is a lot more likely when Shakib is part of their attack. The extent to which he has been missed can be measured by two simple numbers. In the two-Test series in the West Indies, Bangladesh, minus Shakib, picked up a grand total of 21 wickets. Shakib, who has only played two of Bangladesh's four Tests this year, remains their highest wicket-taker in 2014.

It isn't as if he has been running through sides - he took nine wickets in the two home Tests against Sri Lanka - but his presence in the bowling attack at least gives the impression that a wicket-taking delivery is around the corner. In his absence, that feeling simply isn't there.

More than that, Bangladesh have missed Shakib's presence. He isn't just their biggest name and their star allrounder; he is their figurehead too, their one outspoken, larger-than-life character. It's an important aspect to his personality, but it's also what has kept him landing in trouble.

It's not clear why he has become more prone of late to expressing himself so openly and with so little tact. It could have been the losses to Sri Lanka - two of the T20 matches could have gone either way - from which the team couldn't find a way to come out. He made an inappropriate gesture on live television during the ODI series that followed and was banned for three ODIs.

At the World T20, he suggested that home fans 'tone down' their expectations, but the overconfident side of him was quickly back on display after a win over Afghanistan. "I was about to throw a banana skin in the bin," he said. "I said if it falls inside, they will score 40 and if it doesn't they will make 80. They made 72." In the next match, against Nepal, he took the cockiness onto the field, and turned down a single before finishing the match with a six.

Two weeks later, after a disastrous World T20 campaign had ended, Shakib hit the other extreme and said teams should stop touring Bangladesh for two years. From a distance, he appeared to be responding directly to the public mood, but only he knows what he must have been going through. Throughout this period, he was still scoring runs and picking up wickets.

Banning Shakib sent him a message that he couldn't carry on putting the more extreme manifestations of his outspoken personality on display. It also blunted Bangladesh as a team. As they look to recover from the reverses of recent months, with a bowling attack that still appears raw, they will pin their hopes on Shakib, the bowler, who is also Bangladesh's leading Test wicket-taker. They will also want him to be the backbone of the middle order, like he had been while scoring two fifties in Bangladesh's Test win in Harare last year. More importantly, Bangladesh will hope Shakib, the personality, has rid himself of the cobwebs and is there to rally the team around him.