Tigers' comparative advantage
Although the nation is celebrating Bangladesh's first Test win over West Indies at home and the first over the Caribbean outfit anywhere since 2009, it is worth pointing out that from a near impregnable position Bangladesh's home batsmen failed abjectly in the second innings and, against a side more adept at playing spin, may well have struggled to defend the 204-run target yesterday.
Apart from newcomers Afghanistan and Ireland -- who have played one Test each so far -- and the lowest-ranked team in Test cricket, Zimbabwe, West Indies have the worst average (26.13 runs/wicket) against spin bowling in the three and a half years since one of the best players of spin bowling, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, retired.
On the spin-friendly wickets of Asia, they are somehow above New Zealand, South Africa and Zimbabwe over that duration but their average is still a lamentably low 22.88.
When Bangladesh ended the second day on 55 for five and with a lead of 133, one-eyed supporters had started spouting excuses on social media along the lines of: "it was impossible to play on that pitch"... "There was nothing to do but go for shots on such a pitch".
That would however be an injustice to Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium curator Zahid Reza Babu, who for the third time in four Tests has created a high-quality Test wicket that gave both teams a chance -- there was a century, two half-centuries, two five-wicket hauls from spinners and a four-wicket return by a pacer. It was also a wicket where Bangladesh and West Indies tailenders -- on the first and third days respectively -- strung together 65-run and 63-run ninth-wicket partnerships.
Mominul Haque proved that if you pick your spots around the field and pick the right deliveries to hit, you can score runs here. The same was done by Shimron Hetmyer and Shane Dowrich in West Indies' first innings.
"The new ball is the most challenging part on this pitch. When the ball got softer it got a little bit easier, but it got worse as the days went on," West Indies skipper Kraigg Brathwaite said after the 64-run loss yesterday.
"We knew that the match would not be a high-scoring one. The curators tried to prepare the type of wicket we should have at home," Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan said. "I have been playing for 11-12 years and for eight of those I bowled on flat wickets. Now our mindset has changed."
Although Shakib said each wicket is different, this kind of wicket -- containing a lot of turn while not misbehaving in terms of extreme dual bounce or pace -- first appeared in Bangladesh in the October 2016 Test against England and then against Australia the following year. The similarities are quite obvious -- after the first day's play, England all-rounder Moeen Ali had said that it was difficult against the new ball and that it became a little easier as the ball became softer, or in other words slower off the pitch. After the first day's play in the just-concluded Test, West Indies left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican said that the ball came on to the bat nicely for strokeplay.
The following is a quote from Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal after the second day of the Test against England, during which he scored a masterful 78.
"I had to work hard to take every run. I didn't try to do anything more than just the basics. I tried to play straight. A batsman is never set on this wicket, even if he is batting on 70, 80 or 100. You will be in trouble if you think you are set."
Two years on however, on a wicket no more difficult and needing to score just around 200 in the second innings to achieve virtual impregnability, five of Bangladesh's specialist batsmen -- Imrul Kayes, Soumya Sarkar, Mominul, Shakib and Mahmudullah Riyad -- lost their wickets either by playing across the line or against the spin of a zipping new ball in search of easy runs or, as in the case of the latter two, playing outrageous shots against the easier old ball.
The win should also not gloss over the fact that, for all West Indies' well-documented failings against spin, the match's lowest score of 125 was recorded by the hosts.
The one Test in Chattogram of the last four when the wicket was a batting paradise was against Sri Lanka and although this is speculation, one can imagine it was because the hosts knew their fellow subcontinental team were better at playing spin. So while this win should be celebrated, it should not gloss over the fact that to take advantage of the home conditions that Shakib talked about, the Tigers still have to rely on the opposition playing worse, rather than the hosts playing better.
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