[tnb]

It’s a mystery to me that Sujon is able to motivate (?) the team. He cannot motivate himself to rectify his mistakes that he has been doing all through his batting carrier. Most of the times this ‘gutsy cricketer’ gets out playing a cross-bat shot to an off stump line delivery. Here is his last six outs from Crickinfo Archive.

Against PAK, T2
137.5 Shoaib Akhtar to Khaled Mahmud, OUT: short delivery, pulls it in
the air, right down to the throat of Shabbir Ahmed at long leg,
Shoaib Akhtar strikes again and takes his 6th wicket

27.6 Danish Kaneria to Khaled Mahmud, OUT: pitched up, played across the
line, loud and confident appeal for lbw, umpire puts up his finger

Against PAK, T3
99.2 Shabbir Ahmed to Khaled Mahmud, OUT: pitched up, played across the
line, loud and confident appeal for lbw, umpire puts up his
finger, plumb infront

21.1 Shabbir Ahmed to Khaled Mahmud, OUT: ;on target, tries to play
across the line, hit on pads, plumb in front of stump, huge appeal
for lbw, Tiffen raises his finger up

Against ENG, T1
67.3 Hoggard to Khaled Mahmud, OUT: Hoggard strikes again! good
inswinging fuller ball, Mahmud tries to play across the line, hit
on pads, plumb in front of middle stump, huge appeal for lbw,
Desilva says yes that is out

101.6 Harmison to Khaled Mahmud, OUT: fuller length delivery on the
middle, Mahmud moves forward and bit and tries to play across the
line but makes no contact, ball hits the pad plumb in front of the
stumps, Harmison strikes early!, seven down three more to go

In all the last five outings he played across the line when there is a need of showing the full face of the bat. If you have hand-eye coordination and timing of Bashar, then there is some chance of success in playing this kind of shot to an off stump line ball, specially when it is pitched up, else it’s just suicidal. If he keeps on trying to play this shot he is sure heading for another record, most consecutive LBWs.

Most of the players these days have some sort of technical problem. So there is actually nothing wrong to have one. What’s wrong is that there is no sign of correcting the deficiencies.
I don’t know, is not it natural to remember which shot caused your demise in the last innings?

This happened for long. But these days when you know that only 20 to 30 more runs will give you the chance to break the losing trend, it hurts. Really hurts.

[Edited on 26-10-2003 by tnb]