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Old March 14, 2013, 12:17 AM
Gowza Gowza is offline
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just to be clear i'm not saying he's a bad batsman or has been doing a bad job. the job he was given in the WI series he did great. but logically not many test teams bat down to number 8, and stats show riyad hasn't performed batting higher than number 8, he's mainly in the team as a batsman. so if the selectors did want to play an extra bowler, or want a specialist keeper or when shakib comes back i don't think it's unfair to suggest that his position in the team may come under discussion. i mean the only spot he could take in the middle order is mominul's, so even if you put aside that mominul scored this 50 on debut and riyad has a poor record batting above #8 his only chance is taking mominul's spot which surely the selectors would still discuss as he did get the 50 on debut (plus naeem got a ton at #4, he's not there due to injury).

if the selectors want to bat to #8 then sure riyad's spot is secure, but if they don't want to bat to #8, then it will be between riyad and momiul. mominul has a 50 batting at #4 in his first ever test innings whereas riyad despite doing well at #8 hasn't done very well above that. they could drop mominul push shakib/nasir/shakib up the order and have riyad at #7 but mominul got his 50 at #4, shakib has to bowl a lot so they might not want him at 4, mushy has to keep so they might not want him at 4 and nasir has been doing very well if not better than riyad batting down the order at #7 so they probably don't want to push him up. not to mention naeem is out with injury and he scored a ton batting at #4 so it's quite possible they'd prefer to go with naeem or mominul over riyad.

again, this depends on whether they want to bat down to #8 or not, atm with shakib injured his spot should be secure.
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