What's the craziest thing you have done to watch a game of cricket at a stadium?

Bunked classes? Stood in a line for hours? Paid quadruple the price of the ticket? Picked your parents' pockets? Travelled to a different continent? -- whatever the answer may be, and however crazy it may seem, it will fall short of what a group of cricket fanatics did to watch Bangladesh's inaugural Test against India in Dhaka almost exactly 25 years ago.

On November 9, 2000, the day before the match, 10 or so fans somehow made their way inside the National Stadium, snuck inside the venue's restroom, with the idea of spending the night at the lavatory and then blending in with the crowd at the gallery the next morning.

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of stepping inside a public restroom anywhere in Dhaka could imagine what level of sensory torture those fans were willingly subjecting themselves to for the chance of seeing the Tigers take the field in the five-day format for the very first time.

However, their 'ingenious' plan did not succeed. They were discovered by the security around midnight and their dreams of watching the game remained unfulfilled.

"There was so much enthusiasm among the public. Around midnight on the eve of the game, the security found 10-11 people locked inside a toilet. It was just so that they could get seats at the ground on the first day of the Test," Ahmed Sajjadul Alam Bobby, a veteran sports organiser, recalled that incident to the media a few years back.

Exactly 25 years have passed since the opening day of that Test. The bullet points of that game -- the hosts scoring 400 in the first innings, only to collapse for 91 in the second, Aminul Islam Bulbul's century, captain Naimur Rahman Durjoy's six-wicket haul -- are now imprinted in the minds of all Bangladesh cricket fans.

However, many more stories are hidden underneath the surface, stories that elevate that one-sided match that ended in defeat for the hosts inside four days to a game that will stand the test of the time as a Test like no other in Bangladesh cricket history.

"My heart says, it'll happen."

When the first day of the Test done and dusted, Bangladesh, surprisingly, were still in the game.

The newcomers had managed to bat out the whole 90 overs against the Indian attack and reached the end of the day with 239 runs on the board and four wickets in hand.

The star of the day was Aminul Islam Bulbul, not out on 70, 30 runs away from what would be a historic century.

Bulbul faced the media after the day's play and as he was leaving after the conclusion of the formal press conference, sports journalist Utpal Shuvro, currently the chief sports editor of Prothom Alo, asked him whether he would get to the 100-run mark.

And rather than playing it safe with a conventional answer, Bulbul replied, "My heart says, it'll happen."

That same night, Bulbul bumped into Sourav Ganguly in the lift of the team hotel, who teasingly told him, "Tomorrow morning, I will take the new ball, and whatever you have scored is enough. You will be gone."

Ganguly could've taken the new ball the day before, but chose to keep it for Day 2. In the second over of the day, the Indian skipper delivered on his threat as he took the fresh cherry and handed it to his pace trio of Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar, hoping they would wrap up the tail quickly.

What followed was an incredible display of resilience. India bowled 29 overs in that morning session, but could not take a single wicket. Bulbul and Mashud withstood everything the Indian attack had to throw at him and eventually the former reached the historic milestone in 282 deliveries.

His near nine-hour-long stay ended in the second session but that didn't take away anything from what he had accomplished as on that day, Bulbul's heart proved Ganguly's forewarning false.

In the 1983 World Cup, former India captain Kapil Dev arguably struck one of the greatest World Cup knocks of all time, an incredible 175 off 138 balls against Zimbabwe, an innings that turned around his team's campaign, which ended with them lifting the trophy for the first time.

Even though the tournament was broadcast on television and covered in the media, there are no footage of that match due to a nationwide strike from BBC employees on that fateful day -- robbing the cricket world from archiving an innings for the ages. 

Bulbul's century, which arguably holds even more significance for Bangladesh cricket, did not face any such trouble as the entire innings was telecast on TV. However, it encountered a different issue.

The second day of that Test was on Shab-e-Barat, a public holiday, meaning that day's action won't get any newspaper coverage the next day.

On Day 2, Bulbul completed his century, a knock that deserved to be celebrated in print.

So, the Bangladeshi journalists present at the Press box took a collective call and jointly prepared a bulletin titled 'Press box' -- commemorating that brilliant innings.

A total of 69 journalists wrote in that bulletin, including a few Indian reporters who had come to cover the event, and it was published two days later.

Two other batters had hit a century in his country's inaugural Test -- Australia's Charles Bannerman had done it in the first ever Test in 1877 and Zimbabwe's David Houghton in 1992 -- but none of them got a special bulletin like Bulbul.

Those following Bangladesh cricket may feel that public uproar over the selection of the national team is a fairly recent phenomena. But one cursory look through the newspapers in the 90s would quickly break that illusion.

In Bangladesh cricket, the selection of the national team has almost always been a contentious topic, especially before any significant event, with board high-ups even influencing last-minute changes to squad. The inaugural Test was no exception.

Habibul Bashar, who went onto lead Bangladesh in the 2000s, was an up-and-coming batter at the time, known for his instinctive shot-making.

The selectors did not consider him good enough to be part of the 14-man squad for the inaugural Test. But after a media trial, board president Saber Hossain Chowdhury added him to the inflated 16-man squad.

Bashar got picked in the XI as well and after the hosts had lost two wickets in a jiffy in the first innings, it was his free flowing strokes that calmed the nerves at the dressing room and showed all that the Bangladesh side had some fight in it.

Bashar raced to his half-century off 79 balls and reached 71 with the help of 10 fours before getting caught off a hook shot, a weakness that followed him throughout his career.

It was fitting that Bashar, who later became known as 'Mr 50' with 38 half-centuries to his name across Tests and ODIs, hit the first half-century in the five-day format for Bangladesh.

In this instance, at least, board influence wasn't such a bad thing for the Tigers.

A look at Bangladesh's playing XI for that game makes it evident that the hosts had no plans of bowling out the opposition twice.

The Tigers had picked only three genuine bowlers in that game -- pacers Hasibul Hossain, Ranjan Das and spinner Mohammad Rafique.

The hosts sacrificed bowlers to add more batters, a precaution against getting rolled over for next to nothing.

With so few options in hand, skipper Naimur Rahman Durjoy -- an all-rounder known more for his batting than his off-spin -- had to become one of the main spinners in the XI.

Durjoy should've been the weak link in the bowling attack, but at the end of the first innings, he emerged as a best of the bunch.

He put in a marathon shift with the cherry, bowling 44.3 overs and was rewarded with six wickets -- scalps that included Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly.

Durjoy that day etched his name in the history books as the first Bangladeshi to claim a five-wicket haul in the five-day format.

The off-spinner, however, could not replicate that success for the rest of his Test career as he could take only six more wickets in his next seven Tests before being dropped for good, further highlighting how much of an anomaly was his heroics in that inaugural Test.

When the inaugural Test took place in Dhaka, Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur -- fondly called the home of cricket in Bangladesh right now -- was a football stadium.

Even though the Mirpur stadium did not belong to cricket yet, the spirit of Mirpur -- which could be described as blatant doctoring of the pitch to hide the host's blushes -- was well and truly alive, at least according to the India coach at the time Anshuman Gaekwad.

In an interview to periodical magazine Krira Jogot, Gaekwad lauded the Bangladesh team but spoke how the conditions gave nothing to the bowlers.

"The way the pitch has been prepared, there was nothing in the hands of my bowlers. There was nothing to do… If you guys think your batters have done something great, that would be a mistake. On this pitch, batters are getting reprieved from a lot of mistakes. Things would be different on a swinging, bouncy pitch."

Whether this was the ramblings of a coach whose ego was hurt because his side conceded 400 in the first innings against newcomers or the honest assessment of a well-wisher, that's up for debate.

As it was Bangladesh's first Test and they were playing with a squad of players who had hardly played first-class cricket, trying to take every advantage possible was permissible.

But unfortunately for the Tigers, this over-dependence on home advantage has seeped into the country's cricketing culture.

Whenever the going gets tough, the management tries to coddle the team on doctored pitches, a method that brings temporary relief but does not save them from eventual peril -- a contrast that was visible even in the first and second innings of that inaugural Test.