Are Afghanistan spinners really hard to pick?

World Cup 2019

Are Afghanistan spinners really hard to pick?

Z.Ahmed

24 Jun 19 20:55:04

Photo - ICC

|| CF Correspondent ||

Did Afghanistan spinners got into the head of Bangladesh team. The batting approach of the top-order certainly suggest it that way as they never showed any intent to counter-attack the Afghan spin trio- Rashid, Mujeeb, Nabi when they came to bat at Southampton on Monday.

Changing the opening pair of Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar only validate the fact that Tigers were losing their sleep over turn and bounce that they were expected to receive from the Afghanistan slow bowlers.

While Bangladesh posted over 300 runs against South Africa West Indies and Australia they managed to score only 262 against Afghanistan.

In World Cup 2019, in first six matches Bangladesh team opened their innings with Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar, both are left handed batsman and they looked to be serving the purpose despite both being left-handed openers.

Soumya, who is yet to flourish according to his potential did give Bangladesh some positive start and his early blast is believed to have played a big part in the mind of the batsmen in the dressing room as there was no fear in the mind thinking about the bowlers and the wicket despite facing some of the best bowling attacks of the world.

Rhodes admitted that they were not taking anything for granted against the Afghan spinners/ have some

“I think the words respect in Rashid Khan. He's a wonderful bowler. I know he went for plenty of runs against Morgan against England, but that was just one of those days for him. Generally, he's very, very aggressive and tight at the same time, so a quality bowler,” Rhodes said.

Alongside Rashid, Afghanistan’s other two spinners Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi also dazzled with cherry. Even the part time spinner Rahmat Shah was also superb.

Rhodes said they will come up their best without fearing them.

“Then the other two spinners in Nabi and Mujeeb are quality, so we really do respect them, but we don't fear. A lot of the lads have grown up playing on spinning wickets, so they've faced a lot of spin bowlers, but we'll respect them because they're top international bowlers,’’ he said.

Knowing that Afghanistan will likely open with their slow bowlers Bangladesh to change the opening pair as they replaced Liton Kumar Das art the top of the order.

The reason behind the ploy is that generally off spinners are easily handled by right hand batsmen while it is not the case when two left-handed batsmen are batting in the middle.

If that is case than Bangladesh should have promoted Mushfiqur Rahim at number three when Liton departed instead of Shakib al Hasan and as they did not take this route it only implied that they took a very impulsive decision by changing the opening pair considering they felt it will not serve their purpose by sending two left-handed opener, who had been pretty consistent in the recent past.

Liton got out at just 16 runs and as a result the openers failed to give a good start for Tigers but what remained more injurious that the whole structure of the batting had to be reconstructed due to this decision that was largely based on threat expected to be posed by the Afghanistan spinners.