da 888： Exactly seven days are left before Bangladesh is taking on the mightyPakistan in their home ground for the inaugural match of Asian TestChampionship
Shahryar Khan22-Aug-2001Exactly seven days are left before Bangladesh is taking on the mightyPakistan in their home ground for the inaugural match of Asian TestChampionship. The ground of Multan is unfamiliar to both sides evenInzamam-Ul-Haq knows little or nothing about it. It is worth mentioning thathe was born here and Waqar’s hometown is not far away. A team like Pakistandoes not go for spinners when they have a bundle of match winning fastbowlers in their camp. So let’s think they are coming with their quickies inthe Multan field.Bangladesh’s performance against the quick bowlers is a suspect and it isevident in all three Tests they have played so far. Fast bowlers from Indiaand Zimbabwe caused the havoc on every occasion and they had claimed 39 outof 60 Bangladeshi wickets. Pakistan certainly has a stronger pace attackthan that of the other two rivals Bangladesh played against. Here, thequestion arises how far the Bangla Tigers will go against the hostility ofthe Paki quickies with a frail tail?The specialist batsmen of the country were seen struggling against therising deliveries of the Indian and Zimbabwean pacers. Think about thesecond innings of the Test against India when the side collapsed to 91 only.Most of them succumbed to the short pitch deliveries and were found quitenervous in facing such balls.Against Zimbabwe it turned out to be a more daunting task, as they had todeal with the pacers in alien tracks and the front line batsmen missed theassistance they should get from the tail enders. On an average the last fivewickets put 50 to 60 runs on the board, which brought a hasty finish in theinnings. Otherwise, it could not be stiff to take three of their innings offto 300 landmarks or more (257, 168, 254 and 266 are the four test inningsthey played in Zimbabwe and the last five wickets put 63, 39, 83 and 63respectively).The tail-enders of Bangladesh team can bat at least their averages make itclear. Mushfiqur Rahman, who batted at number eight, is an excellent batsmanbut failed miserably. Hasibul Hussain hits the ball hard and he made 28against India. Mohammed Sharif proved in the ODI that he could be helpful atthe end. Enamul Hoque’s ability to bat is indisputable (His average is 36.38in the First Class matches). The sole exception is Manjurul who bats atnumber eleven and much should not be expected from him.Instead of staying on the wicket and batting sensibly, these players wereseen carried away with their wild shots that cost their wickets eventuallyand brought the doom for their side.In Multan, we hope Bangladesh would show some signs of improvements here.