DHAKA, March 2, 2019 (BSS)–Bangladesh’s spin coach Sunil Joshi was not fazed by the team’s premium spinner Mehidy Hasan’s failure in New Zealand condition as the off-spinner leaked runs in abundance to make the task easier for the hosts.
Mehidy, considered as leading spinner of the side in absence of Shakib Al Hasan registered a worst economy rate in the first innings of New Zealand, conceding 246 runs in 49 overs.
He though claimed two wickets, out of the 1371 instances when a bowler has bowled 45 or more overs in a Test innings, Mehidy’s economy rate is the worst. The 246 runs that Mehidy conceded are also the most leaked by any Bangladesh bowler in a Test innings.
“It’s all challenges for the bowler. Specially for Miraz (Mehidy Hasan, he is an young star,” Joshi said after the third day’s game of the opening Test at Hamilton. “He will learn throughout the years. We have seen some of the bowlers name on the list.
Harbhajan (Singh) we have seen, we have seen Anil (Kumble), we have seen quite a lot of players who have struggled. So obviously we have to give that much leverage to our young bowler. I am sure he will come out successful.”
Four of the Bangladesh’s frontline bowlers conceded more than 100 runs in the first innings of New Zealand as they posted a national record of 715-6 before declaring their innings. Bangladesh ended the day on 174-4, still trailing by 307 runs to make New Zealand batting second time.
Joshi was sympathetic towards not only Mehidy, but also tried to console the three frontline fast bowlers-Abu Jayed, Ebadat Hossain and Khaled Ahmed who combined delivered 87 overs to take just one wicket.
“I think it’s very thin line,” said Joshi. “Most of the western team comes to the subcontinent pitches, they always struggle when the ball is spinning. So it’s again, how you interpret, how you look at it, what sort of condition you look at.”
At the same time he emphasized on to bowl in right areas, something Mehidy and other pacers failed to do so far.
”When you bowl to the top order batsmen on a first day pitch, you need to be very discipline. As a finger spinner you don’t have much choice on the first day pitch. So you need to bowl right areas, hitting good length and be consistent and give support to the first bowling options,” said Joshi.
The former Indian spinner believes that lack of proper preparation was the major reason behind their failure in New Zealand.
”If you look at the conditions and what we use at home, you need to have e good preparation. If you look the preparation coming into this tour was… all the national team players were playing in the BPL,” Joshi insisted.
“I am not blaming that. But they did not have the ideal preparation. We are not complaining about that. Again depends on individual. You look at Tamim, what Tamim did, he adapted to the conditions, right? It’s again up the players, individual players how you take it, how you prepare yourself,” he said adding that mindset play a big role in their performance.
”We need to change our mindset how to play this part of the world especially in Test cricket,” he said.