Shahriar Nafees and his struggle

[BangladeshFan]

After watching Shahriar Nafees play, I am wondering how can this man survive so long in international cricket. Nearly every ball he is hurried, every time he flashes outside off it flies to slips. In trying to cover his weakness outside off he tries to play in leg and gives catches in gully/square. Infact, the only time the ball is too over pitched or short he looks confident, even then he seems to be hurried! Every time a bowler bowls a good length, he can expect Nafees to give his wicket away.

This guy will always score bucketful of runs in local cricket, because the bowlers are not quick enough or doesnt test him enough with seaming length balls. But as soon as he in international cricket, he will struggle. Neither Zaheer or Sharma is express, yet his struggle knew no bounds. Why is this guy playing test matches, that too at number 3?

[fais]

because there are too many SN lovers out there who weren't satisfied at his consistent poor performance against the G8s in his first cricketing stint

[Rubu]

He was not this bad before. T20 ruined him. Now I'm completely scared of trying any other ICLers.

Is this the end of SN? Probably so. It was pure and simple ugly.

[Tigers_eye]

A fish out of water. One match says a lot. THe question is, is he better than Zunaid Siddique? In pull shots yes. the rest I am not sure. Chose your pill.

[Nafi]

How was this possible then?

http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/ma...iew=commentary

dropped only once on 66*

Bangladesh 153/1 Shahriar Nafees 66* (73b 11x4)

27.2


Gillespie to Shahriar Nafees, 2 runs, dropped! good length delivery angling in, Nafees drives, edges the ball, Warne diving to his left, fails to hold on to the catch, goes to thirdman.

[Aritro]

One thing that staggers me about Shahriar Nafees is that dispute having all the characteristics that make him completely unsuited to facing the new ball, he's somehow spent an entire career coming in at the top of the order for every side he's played in from underage cricket upwards.

The simple fact is that that someone who takes so long to get settle himself and get his eye is never going to be an effective player against the new ball.

A further deficiency of his is the way his backfoot stays rooted to the crease so that any time a right handed bowler can get one to land on middle and off and move slightly off the seam, the likely scenario is that Nafees will attempt an old fashioned Bangladeshi khocha shot and find himself in trouble. He simply does not have the footwork to be facing the swinging ball. Add to that his tendancy to flash at anything outside off and you have a player who is likely to get himself into trouble off roughly 40% of the deliveries he faces early in the innings.

However, there's something more important than technique when it comes to facing the new ball. Indeed, batsmen like Trescothick, Gayle and Matty Hayden are all prime examples of batsmen who were excellent against the new ball despite having techniques that you'd never describe as compact. However these three batsmen all shared the most important characteristic an opener/number 3 should have: that is, they took next to no time to get their eye in and were settled and ready to bat right from the first ball. Unfortunately, Nafees completely fails on this front. Ricky Ponting is the exception that makes the rule in this case, but I'm sure I don't need to point out that Nafees is not Ricky Ponting.

Now I don't want us to rush into a decision to drop him. The fact remains that we're very short on batting depth and we need to continue to be patient and groom him until he starts making the sort of gradual improvement that we're now seeing from the likes of Mushfiq and Tamim.

However for the sake of our team, and his career, somebody needs to realise that for too long Nafees has been entirely miscast as a 1-3 batsman and move him into the middle order where he can face the old ball and show us what he is at his best. That is; a superb timer of the ball with shots on both sides of the wicket and a wonderful player of spin.

[_Rafi_]

Shahadat has better techniq than SN. I was surprised when they sent SN in one down instead of Shahadat.

[fwullah]

Originally Posted by Nafi
How was this possible then?

http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/ma...iew=commentary

dropped only once on 66*

Bangladesh 153/1 Shahriar Nafees 66* (73b 11x4)

27.2


Gillespie to Shahriar Nafees, 2 runs, dropped! good length delivery angling in, Nafees drives, edges the ball, Warne diving to his left, fails to hold on to the catch, goes to thirdman.

It was possible because Aussies didn't know his weakness back then. Now the whole world knows. Besides, each and every Bangladesh player shows that they're brilliant in their first couple of years of International cricket.

So, how come that was impossible?

[Blah]

If Ashraful can play in the team there is absolutely no reason why Nafees can't play in the team. He is coming back after a long break - obviously he is not in his best. Give him time before dropping his sorry ***. I prefer him over junaeed any day.

I am not sure about imrul though, he looks like a good batsmen (in BD standard), but I wonder if we are better off playing nayeem as an alrounder and bumping nafees to open. With nayeem we can have a solid lower order and have an additional bowling option.

[zainab]

I feel that Zunaid is better than him, they should have persisted with Zunaid. I hope that Aftab and SN can play in ODIs and 20/20 and not gropped completely from the National team.

[simon]

He has ruined his own bttng.
He is selfish which is why he went for ICL.He also has a bad mouth.
He looks like a stranger in the team.
I say forget there was ever a crcktr called SN & give Junaid a chance.
Aftab shows more committement & he looked & felt sorry when ICLers were banned.
So i hope in the next series bring Aftab back & forget Nafis,he doesn't belong to the team anymore.

[beshideshi]

SN's incapability against movement was horrendous. This is him facing Ishant in the most favorable batting conditions. If he wants to stay in the test team he will have to play against Steyn/Anderson/Lees in much more swing friendly condition. He must learn to tackle movement, otherwise he should concentrate on ODI/T20s
But also I think it will be extremely harsh if we drop him after just one test. He should be given some chances. And if he is dropped, I want to see Nayeem making his test debut, he plays with much more responsibility. And we have not yet used his full potentials.

[hbk619]

siddons should drop imrul and sn, and bring back junayed and naeem. i'm disappointed with sn

[yaseer]

I do not want to come to the conclusion of dropping him yet. As he is given a chance in the national team, I want to see him play few more matches. Remember, It is his first international outing after a long time.

[dark mage]

Nafees looked like a fish out of water. He had no clue whatsoever and looked really paathetic and ugly

[Shaan]

Originally Posted by Rubu
He was not this bad before. T20 ruined him. Now I'm completely scared of trying any other ICLers.

Is this the end of SN? Probably so. It was pure and simple ugly.

Ditto, this is not even shadow of SN what he used to be couple of years ago. He looks so miserable out there..

[dark mage]

Originally Posted by Blah
If Ashraful can play in the team there is absolutely no reason why Nafees can't play in the team. He is coming back after a long break - obviously he is not in his best. Give him time before dropping his sorry ***. I prefer him over junaeed any day.
.

Because Ashraful has 4 test centuries to his name and an awesome 153* against IND. Has no weakness other than his mentality and poor shot selection and has shown on his day, every bowler is a street bowler. Does this answer your question?

Sharier Nafees on the other hand will always get squared up, be it a good or bad day, will only score hunfreds against opponents like Zim, or in DPL but against quality bowling, he looks like a fish out of water. Nafess only scored against big teams when e gets "life" and when the big teams didnt know about his weakness. He never looks settled in the wicket against the new ball


Ash has scored and shown what he has against quality bowlers, the only frustration with him is, he isnt consistent. Please dont compare a **** trash batsman like Nafees with Ash. Please note I am not a big fan of Ashraful either but seriously, Ash is a much better and proven batsman than Nafees. Nafees always gets out in a similar fashion time and time again.

[dark mage]

Originally Posted by yaseer
I do not want to come to the conclusion of dropping him yet. As he is given a chance in the national team, I want to see him play few more matches. Remember, It is his first international outing after a long time.

So that he can keep putting the team in trouble? Bangladesh team ki or baper shompotti naki? or is the National team a coaching academy where the faulty techniqal batsmen get to play practice matches against international teams to improve their batting? IMHO, I dont mind if he gets out, like I m never too angry with Tamim even if he gets out cheaply, because he doesnt keep getiing caught in the slips or gets out in similar fashion every time. My problem with Nafeees is, the way he gets out. It just shows how bad he is against quality fast bowling. Its like a big bad joke.

That's why Jamie Siddons didnt want him in the team, and that's why he said, performing well against crap bowlers in DPL is very different from scoring against quality bowlers. Jamie Siddons knows how horrible a technique Nafees has and its almost impossible to fix it up now at this stage of his career. Siddons doesnt want to waste his time on teaching players like Nafees basics when he can spend that time to upgrade the skills of the other players. If the ICL players hadnt left, they could've spent more time with Siddons to improve their game like the other players like Mushfiq, Tamim and Shaqib, but now its too late, Nafees doesnt even look a part of the team.

[Blah]

Originally Posted by dark mage
Because Ashraful has 4 test centuries to his name and an awesome 153* against IND. Has no weakness other than his mentality and poor shot selection and has shown on his day, every bowler is a street bowler. Does this answer your question?

I didn't ask any question. I made a reasonable observation that Ash, who played 50 test matches with 23 avg. and continues to play for the team and Nafees who played 15 test match with 27 avg and the first test he plays after ~2 yrs (and underperforms) and everyone is after his head.

Junaid was given a lot of chances before he was dropped from the team. At least there was a very good reason to drop him, there is no good reason to drop Nafees, yet. Come back after 2-3 series than we can talk about the merits of his inclusion in the team, based on his performance over that period of time.

knee-jerk reaction after couple of games doesn't do the team or the players any good.

Sharier Nafees on the other hand will always get squared up, be it a good or bad day, will only score hunfreds against opponents like Zim, or in DPL but against quality bowling, he looks like a fish out of water. Nafess only scored against big teams when e gets "life" and when the big teams didnt know about his weakness. He never looks settled in the wicket against the new ball


Ash has scored and shown what he has against quality bowlers, the only frustration with him is, he isnt consistent. Please dont compare a **** trash batsman like Nafees with Ash. Please note I am not a big fan of Ashraful either but seriously, Ash is a much better and proven batsman than Nafees. Nafees always gets out in a similar fashion time and time again.

Ash played more games than Nafees, any comparison in the number of centuries and the opponents they were scored against, based on a small dataset of information is faulty and illogical. As far as getting out like an idiot is concerned - Ashraful is second to none; regardless of the quality of the bowler.

You mention that "the only frustration with him is, he (Ash) isnt consistent." Unfortunately, being consistent is the only thing that really matters - I don't care about his ability of score beautiful strokes twice a year.

[capslock]

Ash is still in because it's not embarrassing to watch him play.

[cricket_pagol]

I don't have high hopes about SN anymore... he should definitely get some more chances to make his case, because one game is not enough to judge someone. But, if i were to choose between SN and Imrul, I choose Imrul.

[BangladeshFan]

Originally Posted by Rubu
He was not this bad before. T20 ruined him. Now I'm completely scared of trying any other ICLers.

Is this the end of SN? Probably so. It was pure and simple ugly.

All these Indians play T20 lot more than us. Has it ruined their batting/bowling? I can only see positives, they are scoring at a much quicker rate now, same is true for other countries as well. If there are any bad effects of T20 it will be on everyone, not just our players.

[WarWolf]

I don't like him and his attitude. This guy has a wrong head above his shoulder. I used to like him before getting so much 'famous'. But now he is a completely changed guy in everything he does, batting, fielding, talking ....

[Imtiazk]

Personally, I would drop both Imrul and Nafees. Their techniques, even by our standards, are deficient. Nafees' attitude was also difficult to comprehend. Of course, bring in Naeem. Is Zunaid in the squad ? Put Rakibul at No.3.

[fais]

SN does not deserve a place on our team ahead of naeem - i was rlly surprised to see him getting dropped for the Test ahead of Junaid; they need to rename the squad for the second test