by Razab Q. Chowdhury
Keeping up with the series from the last Test, here are my thoughts on the 1st day of the 2nd Test at Sabina Park, Jamaica.
- Hannan must be totally unable to read Pedro. Most openers will tell you that they observe the seam position of the shiny ball and try to figure out the swing / cut. Pedro bowls the off-cutter (which has had Hannan LBW twice now) and leg cutter with the same upright seam position. The movement is derived from the way Pedro rolls the finger over when he releases the ball. All I can say for Hannan is that he needs to get videos of Pedro's release points and memorise them.
On the same point, Hannan should for the time being, give up on leaving the ball based on bounce only. I think he knows where his off-stump is, but he seems to be doing a bad job on reading the bounce.
- Our batsmen have poor technique against spinners. This was pointed out by a John Buchanan report during the tour to Australia, when he pointed out the BD batsmen's difficulty in playing Lehman of all people. In the last test we gave Sarwan, Gayle a 9-fer or 10-fer. And now we are making Omari a superman. Omari is tall and gets a Collins Obuya like bounce. That's about all I can say of his spin bowling.
|
Hannan misread the ball three times in a row
|
|
|
- Mushfiq & Ashraful were beaten just by the flight. Nothing else.
- This is one bouncy pitch. Some balls were getting Tennisball bounces. Oh to have a Harmison in our side. I know some people crave for Mashrafee, but I've seen Kowshik from 5 feet away. He'll never be the kind of get-you-out-on-a-dead-deck-with-sheer-pace-or-swing kinda bowler. In my mind, such bowlers (true strike bowlers) will usually get their wickets in bunches. Mashrafee has never had any such 3-4 wickets in 5 overs kind of spell. His self-stated hero is Walsh, and that is the kind of bowler he is. Steady with the occasional ability to surprise. Having said that, would have been quite interesting to see how the Bangladesh attack would have been like with him & Baiysha on two ends.
- Our tail rocks! But the Windies are horrible at delivering the killer blow. No self-respecting pace attack should allow, on a wicket such as Sabina, any tail, never mind ours, to add over 100 runs. Again, I blame Lara. As a captain, you can't constantly wear your emotion on your sleeves like Lara does. If I'm a bowler, and after every ball I look up to see my skipper either grimacing or beaming, I start thinking about pleasing him and not focusing on the plan. Lara should watch Ganguly, Waugh or Fleming - those guys are class captains.
- My rule of thumb for a good Test batsman is that once you have made 15-20 runs, your eyes are set - you should then try to make at least 50. Didn't quite happen yesterday did it?
- The Windies attack with the exception of Best & Pedro, failed to impress. If our batsmen could handle bounce just a bit better, we'd be looking at 350+.
- Our strategy now - see if we can hold their batting off until lunch. Then force 'em to earn a big lead. (i.e. use up time on a game of attrition). Our 1st innings total is not a winning one. On the other hand, if the Windies batting collapses...