Pace bowlers shouldn’t be written off: Walsh
Courtney Walsh. -Cricfrenzy
||CF Correspondent||
Bangladesh fast bowling coach Courtney Walsh urged everybody not to write off the Bangladesh fast bowlers who looked out-of-sort and jaded in the first Test against New Zealand at Hamilton, leaking runs in abundance.
The former Caribbean legendary fast bowler said they need time to prove their mettle and therefore everybody needs to have patience on them instead of criticizing.
Bangladesh’s three-pronged pace attack, formed with Abu Jayed Rahi, Khaled Ahmed and Ebadat Hossain fared badly as they combined delivered 87 overs in New Zealand’s only innings to claim just one wicket. In return, they gave away 359 runs in those 87 overs.
Part-time medium bowler Soumya Sarkar was the most successful bowler with 2-68 in 21 overs. Walsh said that the pacers hardly got any chance to prove them, a trend that should be changed.
“You have to give a guy a chance to play back to back games. If you going to play one Test match here and one Test match there, you will never going to learn the trade or improve your own game,” Walsh said on Monday at Hamilton.
“One Test match or two Test matches aren’t good enough. Obviously, in Bangladesh, it’s spin-friendly conditions. In the last tour, we had new bowling attack, this one is the same. There is not continuity and consistency. We have got to just look at three four guys to look at that we think who can make it, especially in overseas, and invest in them.”
While Bangladesh’s main pacer Mustafizur Rahman was rested to get him fitter and stronger to challenge the wind of Wellington where the second Test will be held from March 8, Ebadat Hossain made his Test debut. It was a horror debut as the fast bowler conceded 149 runs in 30 overs and went wicket-less.
Nevertheless, Walsh refused to give up hopes on him. “In Bangladesh, sometimes you might play or not but when they are away from home, they need to play. So it will be nice for them to get a good run, get a feel what’s happening and then you can see what you have learned. I mean we invested in him two years ago, he came here as a developing player. And then he made his Test debut here. So that’s a good sign.”
When everyone criticized Bangladesh’s bowling, Walsh said the New Zealand batsmen also should get their due credit because of their superb batting. “We have to give credit to the New Zealand and the way they played. I thought they batted very well,” he said. “It’s a very inexperienced attack. We will have to reflect on what we did well and what we didn’t do so well. New Zealand are in their backyard, they know the conditions, I thought they played very well.”
