With bats becoming bigger, boundary ropes coming in and power-plays being introduced, cricket was turning into a detractor for the bowlers. Cricket should equally be a bowler’s game besides being a sport for batsmen. Storming every hurdle, the bowlers piled on inspirational performances and demonstrated the reason why they are instrumental to the game.
Wickets hardly come at a rate of peanuts and needs massive persistence from bowlers to get into the nerves of the batsmen. Across all the three formats, stimulating performances were displayed by the bowlers in 2016.
We take a look at some of the scintillating spells of bowling in the erstwhile year.
#5 Yasir Shah 6/72 vs England at London
Leg spinners are assets to the bowling repertoire of a team and Yasir Shah carried forward the conceptual legacy. There is a reason why he’s hailed by Shane Warne as the best leggie going around in the cricketing fraternity.
The stage was set for the first Test at Lords- the Mecca of Cricket- for Yasir to give England a run for their money and make them strain to churn out every run. After Misbah-ul-Haq’s ton lit up the series, it was Yasir’s turn to add to England’s miseries by mustering out wickets on a non-responsive deck.
After breaking an ominous looking partnership between Joe Root and Alastair Cook, Yasir never looked back and snapped up wickets by either trapping batsmen plumb in front or by running through their defence to shatter the timber.
Even in the second innings, English batsmen were high and dry against Yasir and handed him four priceless wickets. Riding on Yasir’s crafty wrist-work, Pakistan scampered to a famous victory and took a much-required lead in the series.
#4 Sunil Narine 6/27 vs South Africa at Guyana
They say that ‘One can take a genius away from the game, but can’t take away the game from a genius’. Marred by suspensions, Sunil Narine was up and running in his very first contest against South Africa since his comeback.
Batting first, South Africa’s ship was steadied efficiently by the top-order and after 35 overs the score stood at 160/3. Rilee Rossouw was batting on 61 and threatened to propel the score to a healthy one, but Narine snapped him up through a faint edge, which eventually panned out to be pivotal in the context of the game.
South Africa folded for 188 runs, losing their final seven wickets for 28 runs within a space of 12 overs. Albeit it required Kieron Pollard’s six-hitting prowess to take West Indies home, but it was the guile of Narine that set up the win.
#3 Stuart Broad 6/17 vs South Africa at Johannesburg
In their own backyard, South Africa had to hustle after losing the first Test and managing to eke out a draw in the second. It was imperative for the Proteas to win the third in order to keep their hopes alive of a series victory against England.
After the end of the first innings of the third Test at Johannesburg, there was hardly any difference between the two sides with England managing a slender lead of ten runs. But Stuart Broad drilled the final nail in the coffin of South Africa’s chances by picking up a six-wicket haul in twelve odd overs.
The Bull Ring witnessed one of the greatest spells of all time as Broad disseminated despair in the Proteas camp, pinning down one batsman after the other. South Africa was bundled out for a meagre 83 runs, leaving England with 74 to win, which they accomplished without much fuss.
#2 Imad Wasim 5/14 vs West Indies at Dubai
Rolling over the reigning world T20 champions- West Indies- is no piece of cake and every team had some sort of a nightmare against them. Their bulging batsmen relish upon demolishing oppositions from the word go and along with some canny bowling and athletic work on the field, they are tough nuts to crack.
The Windies were locking horns with an in-form Pakistan team in the first T20 at the Dubai International in September and yet another Caribbean Calypso was anticipated from their batsmen. Imad Wasim, however, had other ideas and dismantled the West Indies during the power-play, reducing them to 7/47 in the eleventh over.
Five-wicket hauls don’t come easy in T20I’s and Wasim raced away to becoming the first Pakistan bowler to the feat as no batsman came to terms with his trajectory. Not a massive turner of the cricket ball, Wasim used his arm ball to good effect and ended with figures of 4-0-14-5, leading Pakistan to victory by nine wickets.
#1 Mehedi Hasan Miraz 6/82 vs England at Dhaka
After the drubbing at Chittagong, Bangladesh’s morale had seen a downward trend, to say the least. Yet again, it was their lack of experience that robbed the Tigers of a win. It required a moment of inspiration for the Tigers to roar back and it came from the 19-year-old rookie in Mehedi Hasan Miraz.
Though he churned out six scalps in the first innings, it was his spell of 6/82 in the second innings that converted agony into jubilation for the Bangladesh cricket team. England was having a cruise with the score at 100/0 and one more time Bangladesh was on a verge of succumbing to pressure.
Mehedi Hasan came to their rescue and dragged his team to more than a respectable position in the match. Ben Stokes helped England snatch victory from the defeat in the first Test and threatened to repeat the same, but Mehedi and co held their nerves to their maiden Test victory against the British.
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