Whether the match would proceed or not was the subject of
discussion before the start of the third One-day international match between
Bangladesh and England in Chittagong. The city experienced heavy rain for a
couple of days and thus inclement weather was about to play spoilsport with the
series locked at 1-1. There was a reserve day, but England denied to play on
that and for which, the hype and excitement of the fans at Chittagong and
throughout Bangladesh was about to meet a sad end.
Thankfully, the rain stopped, but the gloomy skies persisted
and as soon as the captains of the two teams went out for the toss, they were
greeted with loud cheers. There will be a battle between bat and ball and the
Bangladesh cricket fans will have a great holiday to relish.
Despite the heavy downpour for the last couple of days, the
track at Chittagong didn’t lose its actual nature. The track had bounce and a
nice carry . It was one of those tracks which provided assistance for both the
batsmen and bowlers. A batsman needs to get on top of the bounce and play the
ball late with a straight bat rather than trying something adventurous. And a
fielding team needs to stop the leakage of easy singles and twos and make the
batsman play forward more rather than getting excited by the bounce of the
wicket.
Tamim
Iqbal and Imrul Kayes’ start was steady but not an ideal one, as because on
this track, one needs to utilise the bounce as much as possible to essay a
rollicking start. But Tamim and Kayes decided to proceed in a more traditional
manner – occupy the crease, see off the new ball and build a solid foundation
which was quite an unspectacular idea.
It
only helped Buttler to use his cricketing brain smartly. Butler knew he had
bored Tamim and Kayes who are stroke makers and at any moment, they would try
to come out of the shell and start hitting the ball in the air rather than
keeping it on the ground.
But
Tamim flexed his arms and along with Shabbir Rahman cracked pugnacious strokes
to lift the run rate. The English think tank in the field wanted just that.
Whenever Tamim gets going, he doesn’t mix caution with aggression, but keeps on
playing his shots.
Butler
introduced Adil Rashid and perhaps, he was advised to ball some loose
deliveries to set up Tamim. Rashid dished out a loose ball outside off and
Tamim failed to adjust his shot and tamely slapped it to cover while trying to
play it on the onside.
Rashid
then delivered another loose ball to Mahmudullah Riyad – a juicy long hop at
which Mahmudullah tried to play it on the offside – a wrong ploy against long
hops and thus, was dismissed cheaply. It was a poor shot against a poor
delivery, but it was well-planned one as Butler knew, Bangladeshi batsmen love
to do something silly against loose deliveries and Rashid’s plan to deliver
such balls didn’t go waste.
Shabbir
Rahman and Mushfiqur Rahim got accustomed to the bounce very well added 54 runs
for the fourth wicket in a very short period of time.
England
needed to strike gold and Rashid provided them the breakthrough and when he
outsmarted Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladesh innings was stagnated by some smart
thinking by the English captain and Adil Rashid.
Since
Shakib’s dismissal, Bangladesh added 93 more runs in the last 15 overs.
Mushfiqur Rahim rediscovered his touch, but on this track, they were 30 to 40
runs short.
Sharpness
on the field helps England
England
were very sharp-witted on the field – they set the Bangladeshi batsmen up,
dried up the runs in the last 10 to 15 overs and scripted breakthroughs in the
crucial stages of the game whenever Bangladesh tried to gain the momentum.
While
chasing, England’s batting was all about composure rather than the rush of
blood. They cracked boundaries but they concentrated more on maneuvering the
strike which never let them feel the pressure of the asking run rate.
Ben
Duckett showed why is he rated so highly by the English critics. He applied
himself superbly at the crease and his manner of stroke-play indicates, he is
well set to become one of the finest in Test cricket. Especially his authority
over the sweep shot was brilliant. He notched up 28 runs from ten sweep shots –
conventional and reverse – and this helped him to neutralize the Bangladeshi
spinners to a great extent.
Even
when a partnership was broken, England never got panicked but maintained their
composure to steer the ship safely to shore. Even in the end overs, when
Bangladesh would have started to deal in boundaries, they didn’t bother to
block and rotate the strike more and went for the big shots after two or more
singles and couples were taken.
This
was nothing but sheer professionalism and smart batting.
The
Bangladeshi spinners failed to make an impact as because they thought, this
track would turn and looked for turn off the pitch rather than bowling
wicket-to-wicket and making the batsmen drive forward. Meanwhile, the fielding
was ordinary and failed to stop the leakage of easy singles and twos.
Mashrafe
Bin Mortaza came back strongly with the ball and tried to make the weather heavy ,
but England were in no mood to surrender cheaply as they were determined, smart
and more composed than the home team.
Note: This article has been published
at Sportskeeda on 13/10/2016 England were smarter and more composed than Bangladesh in the third ODI
Thank
You
Faisal
Caesar
No comments:
Post a Comment