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Originally Posted by allrounder
All these stats really do not count because of the followings:
1. The opposition is Bangladesh.
2. Breaking previous record is always possible.
3. There is enough time left to definitely bring a win/loss result to this match.
With the current situation both Bangladesh and Australia has 50-50 chance.
Tomorrow we will find out.
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I really, really resent the gutless, disrespectful tone of this post.
This isnt some amorphous "Bangladesh" bowling - it's an attack comprising of Masrafee, Shahadat, Rafique and Haque.
There's no Tapash Baiysa. There's no Manjural Islam. There's no Khaled Mahmud. There's no Alok Kapali.
The crap bowlers are gone, kaput, history, and will never play again (*).
The fast men are Masrafee and Shahadat. As a fast-bowling pair, they match anything on the subcontinent before the emergence of Imran Khan and Kapil Dev, and the following golden age of subcontinental fast bowling.
Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis they aint ... but I can assure you if Masrafee had an Australian passport, then Stuart Clarke is sitting at the pub in Sydney watching this game, and Shahadat would be wrestling with Shaun Tait for the job of replacing Brett Lee.
Masrafee and Shahadat have both bowled excellently this test.
Here's their match stats.
Bowling O M R W
Mashrafe Mortaza 22 3 56 2
Shahadat Hossain 14 2 48 1
They've bowled with the conditions, and they've been rewarded.
As a comparison, here's the Australian quicks in the second innings - not the first one when Bangladesh were on song, the "collapse" that has the gutless wonders in a state of pants-pissing panic.
Bowling O M R W
Lee 8 0 47 1 (2nb)
Gillespie 7 1 16 1 (1nb)
Clark 4 2 8 1 (1nb)
Both of them have bowled better than Lee, and if you triple Gillespie's overs you get very similar stats to Masrafee in the first.
Now, lets look at the slow men.
First innings stats first
Bowling O M R W
Mohammad Rafique 32.2 9 62 5
Enamul Haque jnr 25 4 83 2 (1nb)
Again, the comparison is to Bangladesh's second innings.
Bowling O M R W
MacGill 13 4 30 1
Warne 8 2 11 0
MacGill has half Haque's stats, and Warne has Rafique's ... only without the wickets.
As a strait-up comparison, they aint bad.
Haque bowled one of the balls of the decade to dismiss Clarke, and the rest of his stuff wasnt crap either.
Rafique bowled tight and well and got turn. He thoroughly deserved his five wickets, and he knows there's more on offer in the second dig.
Finally, Australia will chase 300+ on a pitch with intermittent bounce, and that means they cant just block. They have to attack, because some balls will just keep low, and wickets will fall.
This is Test Cricket. It's meant to be hard.
Ian Whitchurch
(*) I reserve the right to change my opinion on Alok Kapali after he has played enough four day cricket against provincial sides to convince me he's a test-quality leg spinner. Right now, he looks like another Cam White, except without the batting.