WI players: analysis ?

[tnb]

I remember before the England serier Sham did an excellent analysis of the english players, their strength and weakness. Now as the WI tour is coming, could any one please do something similar, showing the strength and weakness of WI players, along with some directions, like what field setting is good for which player. In other words I just want to read our possible strategy against each of the WI players.

[WIFAN]

It should be easy to identify the weaknesses of our batsman, as they all have so many

For example:

Chris Gayle: Dosen't move his feet, so just swing the ball into him and you can usually get an lbw. Don't bowl short or wide, or it will be absolute carnage.

Sarwan: Always shuffles accross the stumps early in his innings, so just bowl straight and he usually gets out lbw.

Lara: Well, his only weakness is against short and fast bowling, and Bangladesh don't have any bowler to do that at the moment. Don't bowl spinners to him, because even the great Murali gets smashed against Lara.

Chanderpaul: Shuffless accross a lot, can be lbw if you swing the ball back into him. Don't bowl short to him, as he is the best player of short bowling in the Windies.

Jacobs: Very poor against short pitched bowling, even against medium pacers some times. get your tallest bowler to bowl short and at his body and he will invariably glove one to gully.

Those are the experienced players, the other batsman will probably be Devon Smith who is like a shorter version of Gayle, and either Ryan Hinds or Dwayne Bravo, who are good young players but are yet to establish themselves in international cricket.

[WIFAN]

As for the bowlers, well they have been slightly more impressive in the last series.

Corey Collymore: Bowls at around 80 mph, and is very accurate. If the conditions suit him he is effective, and destroyed Sri Lanka last year. However, he gets injured a lot and is cannon fodder on flat pitches.

Pedro Collins: Bowls between 78 and 85 mph most of the time, and has improved dramatically this year. He has developed an excellent inswinger to the right handers, and confuse the England batsman throughout the series with this new delivery.

Tino Best: Genuinely quick bowler who always gives his all and bowls every delivery at between 88 and 93 mph. He bowls a lot of short deliveries, and should cause Bangladesh a huge amount of problems. His main weakness is that he can be quite wayward and he sometimes gets carried away with his aggression.

Fidel Edwards: On his day one of the 3 quickest bowlers in the World. Has a fastest recorded delivery of 97.7 mph, and at the start of the series against England he was bowling every ball at above 90 mph and was causin a huge amount of problems. But then he injured his back, and has been a bit slower since, only reaching speeds of 92 mph, although he still caused problems. He swings the ball away from right handers, has an excellent yorker. He has a slingy action that is very similar to the one used by Jeoff Thomson in the 1980's.

It is quite possible that Jermaine Lawson will replace Collymore for the series, and Im sure he needs no introduction after the doubts about his action, his 7/73 against Australia, and his record breaking 6/3 against Bangladesh.

[chinaman]

Dear WIFAN

Great analysis. I'm planning to publish it in the front page. Are you going to add few more players or some "gosha maazaa" anymore? If you do, that would be great and I'll wait, if you don't I'll put together both posts into an article. Will be waiting for your response. Thank you.

gosha maazaa = edition, change, to make it smooth etc etc

[Edited on 4-22-2004 by chinaman : Translation.]

[Zunaid]

WIFAN,

Nice. Add an intro, merge the ttwo and we have a great front page article

[Piranha]

Among the bowlers mentioned here, I am personally most worried about Tino Best. Wisden gave him a really good review, and his skill with bouncers will cause a lot of problems.

Thanks Wifan for your analysis. It always great to have you here.

[BangladeshCricket]

thanks Wifan..yea i think this should be in front and also we should start analyszing not only us but also the team..is there any way to let the players and management know..i bet they are alreday analysizing but who knows we might find something new and can let them know thanks

[Rubu]

chinaman vai, i'm reason to believe that our wifan can't under stand what u mean by "ghasa mazaa". after all, he is a carabean, right?

[al Furqaan]

can someone do what WIFAN just did, except for BD players?

[tnb]

Thanks WIFAN. Nice analysis.

The bowlers look a little too quick to me. Golla and Co have tough time ahead. But the good thing is, that the bowling attack lacks variety. No MacGill or Kaneria to trouble the middle order if the openers are successful in seeing off the new ball.

We have so many SLAs. Chanderpaul and Lara will make their life difficult.

[Edited on 22-4-2004 by tnb]

[chinaman]

Yes, AgentSmith, you are right. Let's see what he thinks. I'll translate that word. Thanks for the catch.

[WIFAN]

Ok, Ill do an intro and merge them into 1 post for you. Should I create a new thread later, or send it to an email address.

[chinaman]

Great. Just u2u to me. If you are not comfortable with u2u, just post it in this thread. Thank you.

[WIFAN]

Done! Just doing an analysis of our players makes me realise how bad we have become!

Oh, well, I suppose both Bangladesh and West Indies must hope that the corner will be turned sooner or later.

[chinaman]

Dear WIFAN

Excellent piece of work! Thank you very much. Please check your U2U one more time.

[SS]

Wifan..I don think WI became bad..they are full with new faces...it needs time...may be in 5 yrs they will be like top teams. still WI is strong enough to beat BD eazily.

[WIFAN]

We underestimated England hugely and got thrashed because of it, so I am hoping our players will give Bangladesh the respect they deserve.

I am not convinced West Indies will find it at all easy. I am not just being polite, I truly believe it will be a close series.

[Zobair]

Just read your analysis WIFAN! excellent work...whatmore might be interested in this analysis

[SS]

it wont be sorry to disagree with you..WI pace attack will give BD co so much trouble..i remember last time even in BD Lawson took 7 wkt in one innings ...BD was all out for one of the lowest test innings score of BD test history. That was the slow pitch of BD ..and now they are in Carribean...so Bd will have lota trouble.
England had a new team...may be thatz why WI took them lightly at the beginning thinking that England will be same like WI new face. only Flintoff was playing superbly...but later on they all clicked together but for BD there is no single superstar who will be a match winner ...and once in a blue moon all click together so WI will be fine with BD.

[Ahmed_B]

SS r u scared?

[fwullah]

Hannan Sarkar: he also moves across too much in front of the stumps - like you, WIFAN said in your thread regarding Sarwan & Chanderpaul. However, if we are to see off the new ball, Hannan Sarkar is the most technically sufficient batsman in the opening position during Tests.

Javed Omar: Will play in Tests, and has a really good temperament, however he's returning from injury and hasn't played cricket for a long while. His weak points are that he doesn't have too many shots under his belt, and not too technically sufficient, he doesn't even go close to Hannan. But he's one of the most experienced players in the side, has been playing since '95, and has a test hundred against Pakistan. But I don't see him scoring a hundred in WI, the tracks are way too bouncy for him to survive much longer.

Shahriar Hossain: might play in ODIs, a very good one-day opener, according to Bangladesh standards, particularly suited for One-Day cricket. He can defend the balls if the ball is straight, unlike Hannan Sarkar, however, his judgement of the balls outside the off stump is not as good as Hannan Sarkar, and so he might get out often if bowled right on the corridor of right outside the offstump.

Monjurul Islam Rana: One of the finds of Whatmore during the last 2 series, he can also hang around like Javed Omar for a long time, but too inexperienced. He could be tested as an opener in the ODIs. His shot selection was not perfect during the last Zimbabwe tour, survived many chances in the way of 'missing edges' when bowled on a good length. However, if he can survive for more than half an hour while playing and missing, playing and missing, then he'll continue to get a big score, like Javed Omar, and unlike Hannan Sarkar (Hannan Sarkar has also very good temperament, but his limit is upto scoring a fifty).

[fwullah]

Habibul Bashar: By now, everybody knows his name, a good player in Test cricket, and for a long time it was like this - if he scores a test 50, Bangladesh reached 200 and if not, Bangladesh getting all out for less than 150. If he can hang around the intial few hiccups, then he'll smash any bowler all around the park, but if he can't, he'll be the laughing stock of any opposition, because he usually doesn't care much about technique, just goes on to score with hand-and-eye coordination. Recently, his form in Test cricket is a disgrace to his own past records, and the only fifty that he scored in the one ODI, Bangladesh won that match vs Zimbawe. As the captain, he believes that Bangladesh can beat any side in ODI cricket, but he's not yet a true believer that Bangladesh can beat any side in Test cricket, yet.

Rajin Saleh: The most successful find of this season, Rajin played brilliantly in his debut series against Pakistan. He's basically a front-footed player, but has a good technique unlike Habibul Bashar. His shot selection is also way better than an average Bangladeshi batsman, but he may struggle in the bouncy pitches of the West Indies. However, if anyone has the capability of adjusting the extra bounce and pace, it is Rajin Saleh. His commitment determination is also far greater than anyone in the side as seen in recent times. Unlike Bashar and Ashraful, he doesn't poses a lot of talent, but a very keen player to overcome this particular weakness of his with hard-work.

Mohammad Ashraful: one of the 2 most talented players (amon the youngsters) in the current side, but not consistent enough to be a great player, just as yet. However, you may have known it that he was the man of the match against Zimbabwe in our last ODI win. And if we are to win in the WI, then Mohammad Ashraful has to do something about it, because he also seemed to be in form during the Zimbabwe series. He played well against the West Indies at home during 2002, but just couldn't reach fifty at the time. His only weakness that I can say is that he's inconsistent - as I mentioned earlier. However, there is one more thing, in the past it was seen that he couldn't resist himself from playing his most favorite pull shot, and if Tino Best bowls at him and give him bouncers, he may be a suspect of not resisting himself from playing the pull shot. However, we hope that we'll see a new Ashraful, the one that we've observed during the last Zimbabwe tour, and that he won't suicide like he used to do before.

[fwullah]

Rafique: Well, Mohammad Rafique is our main strike bowler now, and it'll be difficult for us to bowl out West Indies if Rafique can't take as many wickets as possible, especially in test cricket. He's becoming more devastating day by day and as he plays against different opponents. He's very exeprienced, and will be most successful if batsman try to come down the pitch to him. However, his support bowlers are not so good, excepting Mushfiqur Rahman.

Mushfiqur Rahman: Mushfique is the in-form seamer-allrounder in the side, and an inform- bowler, too. However, ther's the possibility that he could open the new-ball attack in the ODIs, in which case there'll be virtually no one to prevent the batsman from going away to a very big score from the 20th to the 40th over. His bowling is not penetrating at all, but he can maintain a really tight line and length. And he gets wickets if the pressure is on the opposition batsman to get as many runs as possible off his bowling. He provides a good supporting role as a batsman to the specialist batsman, as well.

Tapash Baisya: The only real experienced pace bowler in the side. He's aggressive, skiddy and takes wickets without giving too many runs away. If anyone more likely is to get 4 wickets in the West Indies, then it has to be him.

Tareq Aziz: the star bowler to bowl the last over of the Zimbabwe innings in our win against them, however he's too expensive and too inexperienced to provide much support to Tapash Baisya with the new ball. His plus point is that he is also an aggressive quickie and gets wickets, unlike discarded Monjurul Islam the left arm pacer.

[WIFAN]

Thanks Fwullah!

From what Ive seen of the Bangladesh side, I am looking forward to seeing Ashraful bat and hopefully make some runs, as he is definitely a crowd pleaser.

I think Rafique might do pretty well against the likes of Gayle, Smith and Sarwan, because they like to copy Lara and hit the spinners over the top, even though they are not as good at it as Lara is.

I remember Wavell Hinds being Tapash Baisya's bunny in 2002. Unfortunately for him, Wavell has been dropped and will not play. Maybe he can make Devon Smith his bunny this time!

I wanted to see Mashrafe bowl again, but he's injured isn't he? It's a big shame because he would have added more firepower and exploited Windies weakness against short pitched bowling.

[Beamer]

WIFAN
great job you did writing the analysis. nice to have you on board.
fw
you too.