More skill and depth needed despite pacers’ improvement
Fast bowlers tend to go for runs, especially in Test cricket where fielders are kept in attacking positions and runs often come thick and fast. Bangladesh bowlers faced that scenario in Chennai in the first Test, and then in the second Test, they were introduced to a form of batting where the boundaries of formats vanished as Kanpur had seen two days without a ball being bowled.
In Kanpur, the crowd was a vocal one. They egged the team on to take the route of high risk vs high reward. On the receiving end of that fatality was the Bangladesh bowlers. Khaled Ahmed and Hasan Mahmud, in particular, never recovered from the onslaught on the fourth day.
Hasan went for 66 in six overs, Khaled 43 in four overs. Not much room for error there. It was the expected lengths and lines they usually bowl but this time their nerves and skills were put to the test as batters wanted to attack, not just score but score quickly.
From the very first over, Hasan was under the cosh. From the very first delivery, Khaled was rattled by big sixes as Rohit Sharma charged first ball and then nonchalantly flicked one square of the wicket for six.
The reaction, being spot on about the mindset with which to bowl, should be rapid. An intention to bowl attacking deliveries to bag wickets should be there but they went into a shell early. Not enough faith on those wicket-taking deliveries they might produce and body language slagged.
Shakib Al Hasan said after Day 4 that he was fully expecting that sort of attack from India. "After the first two overs, we reacted but we should have reacted after the first two balls," Shakib told broadcasters.
While the batters are once again to blame for poor decisions in all four innings, in Kanpur they were especially poor on a wicket that did not have much for bowlers after the 35-over Day 1. But the bowlers' struggle in more placid wickets back home compared to away venues where there are run fest or sporting wickets, the wickets column gives some indication.
Taskin Ahmed, the spearhead of the attack, had five wickets in two matches at home compared to 13 in five away Tests over the last three years. Khaled had 10 home Test wickets in eight Tests compared to 18 wickets in five away Tests during that period.
Asked to draw a comparison between the performances of batters to that of bowlers in India Test series, head coach Chandika Hathurusingha pointed out: "The fast bowler do really well when the conditions help us. In this game, the conditions were different and of course the Indian approach also didn't allow us to be at our best. We need to think about and learn from this very quickly. Now we know how to react quickly enough."
There is a case for putting in extra yard on surfaces back home such as Chattogram's for instance, or even Mirpur. The help for seamers are there early but ebbs away as time goes by. On a barren track in Kanpur, without some of their regular pacers, the Tigers struggled. But aggression to take wickets has to come through, and reacting to changes in batters' mindset, in order to face up to unique challenges modern Test cricket provides.
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