Bangladesh eye shift from spin dependency

Bangladesh national think tank has lately been mulling a dependency shift in the bowling department, particularly at home.

Traditionally the workload for Bangladesh at home is taken by the spinners as the side often prefer playing with only two specialist pace bowlers.

But, with the change of mentality of having sporting wickets at home in limited-over cricket, and to achieve results in away matches, the decision makers have recently been thinking of a change.

And that is likely to be evident in the upcoming three-match ODI series against visitors West Indies starting Wednesday at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka.

The 18-member Bangladesh ODI squad for the series features six fast bowlers and the side’s head coach Russell Domingo clarified their intentions during a virtual press conference Monday.

“There’s no doubt that we always wanted to play at least three seamers in our 50-over side. There are some exciting young prospects at the moment. Guys like Shariful (Islam) and Hasan Mahmud. Rubel (Hossain) and Mustafizur (Rahman) have been bowling really well. Taskin (Ahmed) has shown improvement,” said Domingo.

“There’s a whole host of guys pushing for places. We need to make sure we provide them the opportunity to play ODI cricket. I think we can’t just be a team that plays spinners all the time. We are going to New Zealand in six weeks’ time. There I can assure you we can play only one spinner so we have to make sure we have seamers who are ready to play international cricket. I can’t see myself playing an ODI without three seamers,” said the former South Africa coach.

The set-up of the playing XI for any game however, will eventually depend on the conditions, said Domingo.

“It depends very much on conditions. We have Shakib (al Hasan) in the side who will be bowling 10 overs. In the sub-continent you always want to have one other full-on spinner. We need to decide who that is going to be. You always want to bowl 20 overs of spin in sub-continent conditions, maybe with one or two part-timers. But you also need to make sure you have enough pacemen in case the wicket offers something to the fast bowlers. Particularly it being the winter, 11:30am start. There might be a bit of movement in the first hour with a little bit of dew and fog around. We need to make sure we cover both bases,” Domingo explained.

Domingo emphasized on the start of their preparation for the World Cup 2023 through this series. 

This aim of Bangladesh national team management was revealed, particularly after dropping veteran pacer Mashrafe bin Mortaza from the ODI fold.

Mashrafe had stepped down from his role as captain of ODI team in March last year but has made it clear with regards to his availability for Bangladesh ODI side as a player.

“The World Cup seems to be three years away but we know how quickly that goes. This is the first step towards the World Cup. There might be one or two changes in batting positions with some guys batting in positions they haven’t batted before. But at least six to eight months before the World Cup, that batting line-up has to be settled and established. They have to play in the position that they will play in the World Cup,” said Domingo.

“So now might be trying to find what we think is the best batting line-up. As we get within six to eight months of the World Cup, we settle on that and those guys playing in those positions leading into the tournament. By the time the tournament starts, they’d have played 20 games together in their particular role leading into the tournament. There isn’t going to be chopping and changing but looking at different options under different conditions, and then settling into something in the last year leading into the World Cup,” he added.