A tactical call that made sense
Bangladesh's pace battery kept on giving to capture the lion's share of Sri Lanka wickets in their crucial Super Four fixture in Colombo yesterday, but they were aided by the contribution of a certain fresh face in the ODI setup who remained an unsung hero on the day despite having remained wicketless.
The previous matches of this Asia Cup installment saw Bangladesh field five specialist bowlers. The trade-off, to compensate for the lingering batting vulnerability, thus posed quite a challenge for captain Shakib Al Hasan to make sure all his five specialist bowlers deliver.
With talks over adding an extra bowling option surrounding ahead of the match, the team management finally opted for an extra bowling option.
The sluggish surface at the R Premadasa Stadium was likely considered as well and, as a result, misfiring batter Afif Hossain made way for Nasum Ahmed, playing in his eighth ODI match.
The left-arm spinner brilliantly did justice to his reputation and kept the Lankan batters on a tight leash since his introduction in the 10th over after Shakib opted to bowl.
Sri Lanka, though, did find themselves on the front foot at one stage, with scoreboard reading 108 for one in 23 overs. However, Shakib did not seem to be in a spot of bother as he and Nasum combined to operate in miserly fashion, often in tandem, paving the way for the quicks to bowl aggressively in the middle overs, in search of breakthroughs.
The cricketer from Sunamganj ended up conceding just 31 runs from his full quota of overs while Shakib gave away 44 runs from his 10 to frustrate the hosts.
"Nasum usually is a good bowler with the new ball inside the Powerplay. But yes, since he bowled mostly in the middle overs yesterday, the plan was to bowl as many dot balls, dry up the boundaries, and unsettle the batters on a tough wicket. I think he bowled really well," local spin-bowling coach Sohel Islam to The Daily Star.
Pacers Hasan Mahmud, Taskin Ahmed and Shoriful Islam combined to scalp eight wickets for 167 runs in 27 overs. They remained on the expensive side, largely due to a blistering 72-ball 93-run knock from Sadeera Samarawickrama who led the charge in Sri Lanka accumulating 257 for nine in 50 overs.
The Premadasa had registered an average first-innings score of 268.65 in last ten years, but interestingly it came down to 246.8 in the last five matches, which might have prompted the team management to make the tactical call.
"Look, definitely it was the plan since there was some advantage for the spinners on the surface. But I think it was a collective approach from the bowling unit. We need to understand the reason behind including Nasum and Sheikh Mahedi in the squad despite the presence of Shakib and Miraz," said Sohel.
"Previously the Premadasa pitch offered assistance to the seamers but in the LPL recently we have seen the spinners coming into play more often. I think this flexibility will allow Bangladesh to form the playing eleven according to the demand of the surface and opponent in the coming days."