[Match Thread] 3rd Test: Zim vs Bang at Chittagong

[jaybro]

Saying having Williams would have helped is assuming but the facts are in the last 12 months he has been our best Batsman in ODI cricket and close to our best spinner so I guess it's a conclusion Im happy to jump to that he would have helped ......

[Kriterion_BD]

He would have helped, yes. But 160 and 180 runs are margins a single player wouldn't be able to cover on his own, IMO.
In the same vein, based on the evidence of Mominul scoring centuries in SA and WI at academy and A team level at age 19-20, I feel he would hold his own even on seaming tracks now at age 23. Bowlers like Gabriel and de Lange may not be world class but they are genuinely quick and decently skilled...any 20 yo who can score big hundreds (144 and 150) in their own conditions must at least have potential.

Maybe I should clarify my position:

I hope Mominul averages a million in places like AUS/SA/ENG/NZ against bowlers like Johnson, Harris, Cummins, Pattinson, Steyn, Morkel, Philander, Anderson, Broad, Boult, and Southee. Do I think he will average a million or even just 63.05? No, most probably not. I do think he can average 35 or even 40+. To me that is good enough to be considered "holding one's own". I guess 15 years from now we can definitively answer the debate. For now we'll just have to wait and see. Nothing is guaranteed, but I think Mominul has what it takes.

[jaybro]

He will most likely be able to dodge the most difficult conditions for him I feel which is playing in Oz, although Bangladesh may play tests in Darwin and cairns again I doubt he will ever have to play at the WACA or GABBA or even the MCG which has quicker up of late .....

Even Sangakarra hasn't had to play a test at the WACA .....

Mominul is good and possibly could end up the best Bangladesh batsman to play test cricket ( jumping to conclusions ) but I feel his technique wouldn't hold up in these foreign conditions .....

[Kriterion_BD]

Yes, Perth and Brisbane do seem to be the tougher venues in AUS. Only 5 subcontinent bats have hit hundreds there (Ganguly, Tendulkar, Ijaz, Anwar, H Tilakaratne). Tendulkar averages just 27 odd from 9 innings.

That being said, a venue should be judged on its real time condition and not on its reputation. Case in point, the Dhaka Test a few weeks ago...turn and bounce which ZIM expected, but it also had seam and pace - which BD did not expect. Hence both Panny and Chigs had their best series figures on that strip. If I recall correctly, you had predicted a 0-0 series draw given the placid nature of BD wickets. Usually Dhaka (and all BD wickets) are flat, slow, low-even bounce, and minimal turn if any. That Dhaka pitch was NOT flat. Khulna and Chittagong were flat for the first 3-3.5 days and then offered a bit of turn on day 5 (Khulna had variable bounce as well).

Contrast to Tendulkar's landmark 114 at the WACA when he was 19...there was no exagerrated bounce or seam movement. Hughes was getting the ball to swing, but it wasn't extraordinary. The wicket wasn't green either. I can't say if it was a "lightening quick" surface as Tendulkar's cricinfo profile claims, but it wasn't an unplayable wicket. What made the innings remarkable was that Tendulkar was only 19. The highlights are here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Aj6EINaDXc

Now check out the surface the 2006 Under 19 world cup final was played on in Colombo...in particular watch how Anwar Ali was moving the ball around. The seam and swing is so outlandish that it doesn't even seem real!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-snY24zLiGc

I think wickets ought to be judged on their nature on the day instead of on reputation.

[Kriterion_BD]

That being said, my analysis of BD batsmen is the following.

BD players are naturally strong on the front foot for the obvious reasons that most of our wickets are low and slow. The players who are good on the backfoot (defending, cutting, pulling, hooking, etc) will have a higher chance of success on bouncy/pacy tracks. Thats common sense. Of our current group, the players strong on the backfoot are Tamim, Shakib, and Mominul. Mushfiq is also strong on the backfoot...he did hook Steyn for 2 sixes on one of the greenest wickets I've ever seen back in 2008 when he was really young. In fact he hit 36 off the 24 balls he faced from Steyn in the first innings of the Centurion Test. I didn't watch that particular innings as far as I remember, but cricinfo said this:

The pitch for this Test does have quite a bit of grass on and it should be bouncy. Should be perfect for the South African bowling attack.

68.5 Steyn to Mushfiqur Rahim, SIX, short and beautifully hooked off the meat of the bat, all timing and it carries over the backward-square boundary

68.6 Steyn to Mushfiqur Rahim, FOUR, Steyn bangs another one in and another pull, this time finer and along the ground

70.3 Steyn to Mushfiqur Rahim, SIX, going .... going .... gone. Swung beautifully from middle and leg some way over the midwicket boundary and into the sparsely-populated grassy bank

But Mushfiq has a water tight technique, so that even if he's not totally comfy on the backfoot, I think he would do OK in bouncy conditions.

Tamim and Shakib are relatively taller BD batsman (5'10" and 5'9" respectively) and thus they can play length/shorter balls better than a Mushy or a Mominul. Tamim has above average technique, with his main flaw being that he tends to play away from his body a bit. Tamim will thus have his good days (2 tons in England) and some bad ones as well. Shakib's technique is extremely poor or at least painful on the eyes, and thus I would expect him to fail when the ball starts swinging or moving off the deck.

Mushfiq and Mominul are tiny batsmen, both just 5'3", and so what would be a length ball for say a KP or a Graeme Smith is going to be sternum height pulling length for them. Mominul has a pretty compact technique, not as tight as Mushfiq's but decent. He tends to drive or chase deliveries away from his body also, just like Tamim, and that is his only real technical flaw at this point. So I think he would be susceptible to the moving ball, although he was batting beautifully against Panny, Chatara, and Chigs on a seaming Dhaka track with bounce (Chatara was cranking it up close to 90 mph that spell) and would have had a substantial score if he hadn't run himself out for 53. But yes, Mominul, will be vulnerable to away swingers and being dismissed caught behind if he doesn't tighten that technique of his a bit. But the reason I have high expectations of Mominul and not say an Ashraful is because Mominul is acutely aware of his limitations and has a hunger for runs that is very un-Bangladesh like as well as the work ethic to constantly improve his game.

So in conclusion, I will be quite pleased if Mominul averages any more than 40 in AUS/SA/ENG/NZ by the end of his career and hits a few tons. Match saving efforts would be a bonus. I'd be somewhat satisfied if he averages 35+ and disappointed if he is under 35. I guess we'll see what happens 15 years from now when he calls it quits.