After some close battles fought in the five-nation tournament, the teams have a fair understanding of the conditions for ICC World T20 starting in a week’s time. Abhijit Banare looks at the five teams and their prospects of relying on spinners.
Mirpur and Fatullah were the two venues which saw hectic matches scheduled one after the other in the Asia Cup 2014. Without much doubt, the pitch had gone through wear and tear. However throughout the 11 matches that were played, one thing that went against subcontinent norm was batsmen not entirely dominating the series. It’s been an accepted fact that subcontinent pitches for limited overs are flat decks where anything less than 300 is considered as a modest total. However, in the tournament, only once a match saw 300 plus scores.
A major lesson learnt was the role of spinners. All the five teams had quality spinners in their bag. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are filled with three quality spinners. Afghanistan have Samiullah Shenwari and Mohammad Nabi. Bangladesh have Shakib Al Hasan and others part time spinners. At Mirpur, the wicket wasn’t slower, but there was enough turn to fox the batsman. Ravindra Jadeja just ripped through the Afghanistan batting. Saeed Ajmal was almost unplayable in the final of the Asia Cup. In the shortest format, where things progress at lightning pace, even if the batsmen realize the situation, there is too much pressure to plan after starting an innings. As a result, once the spinners start dominating, it’s difficult to stop them. All the spine-heavy teams of the sub-continent will make good use of it. Of course, Hong Kong and Nepal are still inexperienced to be counted on to take an advantage of this.
Now coming to the teams in particular, the champions Sri Lanka have the right team to shuffle according to conditions. A brave decision to back Suranga Lakmal ahead of match-winner Ajantha Mendis paid off for them. For the ICC World T20 2014, they have Rangana Herath back as well. With Mendis, Herath and Sachithra Senanayake, the Lankans will be tough to score off. Only few teams apart from India have managed to read Mendis well. Herath is an old fox who knows the tricks of the trade across formats. With Lasith Malinga in the team, Sri Lanka will be the most economical team.
Pakistan have the best spin attack amongst all the teams at present. Shahid Afridi and Ajmal are good enough on any wicket. There’s no doubt that their eight overs together can easily change the fate of the match. And to top it up, Mohammad Hafeez is now like a regular opening bowler frustrating batsmen with his disciplined line. This is one lineup which is sure to feature throughout the tournament t as this has been their regular combination.
The third giant, India have Jadeja upfront along with Ravichandran Ashwin. And to solve MS Dhoni’s ever-lasting worry for reliable pacers, Amit Mishra has grabbed his chances in the last two matches of the Asia Cup. Among all the teams, India in all likelihood will be eager to step in with three specialist spinners. Jadeja in particular is tough to get away. The only negative aspect is, the batsmen who read him well can easily understand the pattern of his faster ones and arm balls.
Among the remaining two, Afghanistan seem to be having a much better spin attack than Bangladesh. Mohammad Nabi got good turn throughout the tournament. And their leading wicket-taker is leg-spinner Shenwari, a smart bowler who can get hit but picks wickets more often as well. They have Mirwais Ashraf too, whose medium pace is difficult to smash around.
In Bangladesh, apart from Shakib, the rest lack the smartness to use the variations. Most of them just roll their arms over and dart the ball in. The weakest spin attack in terms of skill among the five teams that played the Asia Cup.
If any of the wickets turn out to be slowish, these spinners will come hard on the opposition. With all these teams having at least three quality spinners, their reliance on pacers will go down a lot. Take for example a team like India which has by far the most average pace attack among others. With just Mohammed Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, they can rely on spinners overall. With just one match out of the 11 being a 300 plus game, one has to wait and see whether these slow flat wickets are seen for the T20 as well. If that happens, spinners will surely rule the tournament.
(Abhijit Banareis a reporter at CricketCountry. He is an avid quizzer and loves to analyse and dig out interesting facts which allows him to learn something new every day. Apart from cricket he also likes to keep a sharp eye on Indian politics, and can be followed onTwitterandblog)
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