Afghanistan’s meteoritic rise in World cricket and their
stunning victory against Bangladesh last year at Mirpur during the Asia Cup let
many cricket pundits think that the Afghan warriors are all set to hunt the
Tigers again and start their World Cup campaign with a bang. But it was not to
be. Mashrafe Mortaza and his men might have traveled through the troubled
waters for a brief period, but they didn’t let another Mirpur-tragedy to repeat
in Canberra .
It was staggering to see that a competent middle-order
batsman like Mominul Haque was sent to bat at number eight and play the role of
a pinch-hitter. Such a move was pretty useless. Mominul is a middle-order
batsman and he must bat high up the order.
But, Soumya Sarkar and Mahmudullah Riyad have established
themselves at number three and four positions, respectively and with players
like Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim coming to bat at number five and six,
it becomes tough to find a place for Mominul.
To include Mominul in the team, Bangladesh
might have to sacrifice either Anamul Haque or Soumya Sarkar, which is pretty
tough at present.
At number seven or eight someone like Nasir Hossain must be
played. Nasir’s presence will certainly give Bangladesh
the X-factor and one cannot forget his abilities to dish out instrumental
knocks under pressure. The team does become dynamic enough with players like
Sabbir Rahman and Nasir Hossain coming in at number seven and eight.
Mashrafe needs to be a bit more attacking as a captain
The Afghanistan
batting line up was jolted by the Bangladeshi seamers. Mashrafe Mortaza and
Rubel Hossain dismissed three Afghan batsmen for three runs and any captain
would love to go for an all out attack. But Mashrafe Mortaza went defensive and
allowed the Afghan batsmen to settle down.
When the new ball was posing enough threat, Mashrafe should
have placed a third and fourth slip, but he was seen operating with one or at
the most, two slip fielders. Again, Mashrafe should have put a fielder at gully
position to make things tighter for Afghanistan
batsmen in the first ten to fifteen overs. Sadly, Mashrafe was found reluctant
to attack.
Such minor things don’t create a headache against
inexperienced teams like Afghanistan ,
but against better teams, they are bound to pose a big threat.
Note: This article has been published in Sportskeeda on 19/02/2015 Bangladesh played well against Afghanistan, but there are still areas to improve
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
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