Shakib Al Hasan showed how to play short-balls with authority

The bounce of the wicket at Hagley Oval was nice and true. It was a typical limited-overs track which makes cricket worth watching Downunder. Pitching the ball on back of a length by targeting the top of off stump would test the skill and temperament of the batsmen, while the batters were needed to get on top of the bounce by getting behind the line of the ball and playing close to the body with soft hands.

Pitching the ball too short and playing the ball with hard hands won’t fetch any productive results.

The New Zealand batsmen are well-equipped to exploit their home conditions and went into business from the word go after winning the toss. Bangladeshi bowlers did pick wickets and tried to dent the acceleration, but inconsistency in maintaining the right length led to a game-changing partnership between Tom Latham and Colin Munro which took the match away from the visitors.

At 158 for 4 in the 29^th over, it seemed, Bangladesh might be able to keep the score below three hundred, but the next eighteen overs witnessed some eye-popping power-hitting from Latham and Munro which would have made Brendon McCullum a proud man. But, one cannot deny, how below-par the Bangladeshi bowlers had been.

Latham and Munro were fed with a good amount of very short balls and half-volleys regularly, which were plundered all along the ground in the most ruthless fashion. Bad bowling deserves to be treated brutally and the Kiwis never bothered to show any mercy towards the visitors.

Bangladesh required 342 runs to win from 50 overs and the kind of display the visitors exhibited for the last two years, on this wonderful track, the optimistic cricket fans didn’t lose hope. What Bangladesh needed the most was a good start, big partnerships and not lose too many wickets early.

Those who could not wake up at 4 am and follow the bowling of Tigers, switched on the television set at 9:30 am and discovered Bangladesh were in tatters at 48 for 3.

The menace were the short balls which the home team pacers well-directed towards the head of Bangladeshi top-order batters by landing them in the right area and pitching it rather full to extract enough movement from the new ball. The Bangladeshi innings lost its momentum before it could get into the groove and give the home team a fighting reply.

The short-balls proved to be a nemesis, but one man showed how to deal them with authority and he was Shakib Al Hasan.

When Shakib emerged onto the scene, Tamim Iqbal was at the crease pondering how quickly the Bangladesh batting is facing an ugly collapse. The tearaway fast bowler Lockie Ferguson and Trent Boult were too hot to handle while the medium-pacer Jimmy Neesham was making the scoring of runs tough with a nagging line and incisive length.

Shakib remained unfazed by the pressure. He knew it was his time to step up and boost the confidence of his team by remaining composed and brave. If the challenge was a stifling one, he has the technique and temperament to travel through this tough passage of play.

The sight of the best allrounder in the world surely would have charged Ferguson up to bang the ball short and knock him out. But if a batsman possesses the right technique against the short-balls, he won’t sweat.

Shakib handled the fury of Ferguson bravely.

The 29-year-old was fed with a barrage of bouncers, but his stay at the wicket was not short-lived. His initial trigger movement was on the back foot which helped him to get behind the line of the ball quickly than his other colleagues. His focus was not disturbed by the heat of the bouncer-display and thus, picked the length quickly to fetch runs.

Shakib’s balance on the back foot was better. It aided him to execute the pull and hook shots nicely by keeping the ball on the ground. His first boundary against Neesham was a perfect example of how to execute the pull shot via maintaining the balance on the back foot and achieve pristine timing by letting the ball come in the middle part of the bat.

There was no real power behind that shot, but a superb technique allowed the ball to travel the distance. Of course, Shakib never went hard at the ball, but fetched runs with soft hands, playing it later and getting on top of the bounce.

Technically, Shakib was very perfect and like him, Mushfiq was also showing immense maturity while dealing the short-pitched stuff. An injury dented Mushfiq’s stay at the crease. Otherwise, the Shakib-Mushfiq partnership might have given New Zealand a scare.

Shakib’s stay at the crease was the perfect example of how score runs against high-quality pace-bowling and thus should help Bangladesh in instilling the confidence of dealing with short-pitched stuff.