It will be a futile exercise to predict the playing XI before any of the practice matches. It’s quite obvious that this series can only have one result, which is certainly not in favor of Bangladesh. If Bangladesh has to make an upset in any way or form, the odds of pressing a draw is less than pulling an unlikely win. The fact of the matter is that we are not capable of pushing the test match till the tea of the 5th day, so what IanW said about playing a combo for a win should at least get some consideration. But in the end, playing only 5 specialized batsmen may turn out to be too much of a risk for Bangladeshis to take at this time.
The 3 newcomers in the squad should be played in all three practice matches. If they click, all of them should be in the playing XI for the test. JO has to leave for good either in this tour, or the tour after, so we might as well start grooming Abir as one of our long desired opening partner of Nafees.
The other new face in the team is Mushfiqur Rahim, and we do have the option of using him as a specialized batsman. If he can give us a few decent scores in the practice matches, he should replace Aftab at least for one of the test. Aftab certainly is a class act, but in the longer version of the game he still hasn’t come out of his shyness. He played 8 test innings so far, and scored the following: 20, 28, 43, 4, 6, 11, 0 and 5. His scores for the disastrous Duleep Trophy tour were 24, 8, 18, and 26. On the other hand, Mushifiqur has a good track of runs from his tours with the Bangladesh A, and U19 team, which also include few centuries. If Aftab follows a similar pattern of scores in the first test, give Mushfiqur a chance in the 2nd test.
Lastly, it’s a close call for the spot of the 3rd pacer in the team. Shadat, and Munir are somewhat ahead of Talha in terms of performance from their respective A team and BCB XI tour. Again, whoever copes well in the practice matches should play the first test.
|