No Mustafizur Rahman, no Taskin Ahmed, no even Nahid Rana – so who will Bangladesh have to fight on the pace wickets of Lahore! Yet, Bangladesh team coach Phil Simmons considers pace bowling as the team's strength in the T20 format. Can Shariful Islam, Hasan Mahmud, Tanzim Shakib live up to those expectations?
The wicket at Gaddafi Stadium is helpful for batting. In the last four knockout matches of the recently concluded PSL, including the final, five innings have seen scores above 200. In two innings, runs above 190 were scored. Even amidst this flood of runs, the pacers have bowled well. In the final, where more than 200 runs were scored on Sunday night, Shaheen Afridi took 3 wickets for just 24 runs in 4 overs. Lahore's other two pacers, Haris Rauf and Salman Mirza, took 2 wickets each, although they were a bit expensive. Despite being beaten in the last over, the pacers bowled well in the first three overs. Not only the final, but the other three knockout matches held in Lahore have also shown their dominance. The only condition for the pacers to succeed here is that they have to keep the line-length right and consistently bowl the ball in the right places. They also have to have speed. This is where Bangladesh's pacers lag behind.
The coach admitted after the practice at Gaddafi Stadium on Monday evening that this deficiency would have been largely eliminated if Mustafiz-Taskeen had been there, "Mustafiz is now a senior. You will miss your senior pacer. We saw how he bowled in the IPL. We will miss him. But this is also an opportunity for others to prove themselves. Hopefully, someone will fill the gap in this series."
Simmons also openly spoke about the disruption in the bowling balance due to the absence of Mustafiz and Taskin, "Bowling is our strength in this format. However, the lack of two senior pacers like Taskin and Fiz will disrupt the bowling balance somewhat."
Although Bangladesh have brought in Khaled Ahmed to replace Mustafiz, who was injured while playing the IPL, they have not replaced Nahid Rana. Nahid, who was caught in the middle of the India-Pakistan clash while playing the PSL, withdrew from the series citing personal reasons. Soumya Sarkar, who can bat in the top order as well as medium pace, has also been ruled out of the tour due to a back injury. Spinning all-rounder Mehedi Hasan Miraz has been brought in to replace Soumya.
New pace bowling coach Sean Tait is going to start his first mission with this weak pace attack. Head coach Simmons expects Tait to do something good with the pacers despite the lack of experience. Simmons believes that the experience of coaching the Aussie pacer in the PSL will be useful. Among all these negative things, one good news is that there is no dew in Lahore like in Sharjah.
