Style

[safaat]

There is no doubt about the potential that Ashraful and Aftab Ahmed posses. But there is definately a massive frustration on the their inabilty to perform consistently. specially Ashraful.

Compared to Ashraful, Aftab is fairly new, and probably it will unfair to be critical about him. But even in this short span of 9 test matches, his average of 21 leaves a lot to be desired. Also for so much talent in 18 knocks he has only got a single fifty. Perhaps one may argue that his strenght is against pace bowling, and because he bats at number six, he usually comes in when the spinners are operating. Thus, he is immediately exposed to his weakness without getting an opportunity to settle in, which results in him playing under the psycological pressure of surviving against spin. And because of his inexperience and youth the ends ups panicking and plays a rash shot to get out. Perhaps the besting that may happen to him is that he gets a slot higher up in the order, at a number where there is a good chance that he will come up against the seamers innitially.

On the other hand Ashraful has no such problams. He is classic against any sort of bowler at any stage of his innings. However the problem is that he doesn't last long enough for his inning to be divided into stages such as "good start", "capitalizing", "accelarating" etc. The difference between him and Aftab is that where Aftab stuggles initially against spin, Ashraful guarantees wicket giving shots at any stage of his innings. The rare ability to play several strokes to one ball (which only rare players such as Lara, Tendulakar, Inzamam can do), is something that Ashraful posses and one may think that this probably is the mainreaso for his downfall. He wants to play shots, but which shot should he play, and which shots will bring him the most runs is probably the main dillema that he is suffering from which is causing him to play variuos unrequired shots. In between all this he has forgotten one simple thing. It's not the array of shots that matter, it's the runs that count. And thus even if he just plays two types of shot throughout an innings and gets a hundred, no one would complain.

However there is another thing that both have to take into account. Pitches in their country are a lot more slower than the pitches in England, Australia or South Africa. And thus it is tough to play shots fluently on these of pitches. Although both have been brought up on these sort of pitches, their style of play differs from the tradional sub-continent batman. They play more in the mould of the Australian/South African style which are based on faster picthes, where the ball comes on to the bat and batsman can hit through the line.

Thus like the Aussie/South African batsman they stuggle on the slower pitches of their own country. This test series against Australia, thus gave the two perfect examples of they can play in their own conditons. In the first test, Adam Gilchrist and more prefarably Ricky Ponting showed how exactly one should play on such picthes. Both, Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist likes score at a rapid pace and usually their hundreds come from 130/140 balls. However in these conditions they were prepared to take their time, score singles, cut down playing boundry shots and most importantly play straight.

Compared to his usual knocks, Pontings knock in both the test were slower and less flamboyant. He depended more on nudging the ball around taking singles and play with a dead straight bat, which would show the makers name to the bowler on most occasions. These are things that he probably will not have to do back in Australia or England or South Africa.

The nature of both Ashraful and Aftab, is like Ponting's. Thus both his innings (2nd innings of the 1st and 1stinnings of the second) are ideal examples of how Ashraful and Aftab should look to play. Currently, they either do one of the two: play shots from the word go, or be over defensive. Both have there effects, whose end result is a poor score.

What they have to do, in order to change the current situtation is change their stlye of play on these pitches. Forget about playing lofty strokes against spin. Forget about playing spanking cover drives or dismissive hooks and pulls. Instead, look to take singles (something which is almost non-existent), nudge and dab the ball into gaps, keep the strike rotating, play with soft hands and most importantly play straight.

If someone looks at Aftab's defensive shots against the spinners, his bat is usually facing mid-off rather than the bowler. Bat facing mid-off is not straight and more importantly it brings the risk of an open face, which is usually the cause of egdes. Although against pace he doesn't face that problem, he looks to play a lot of strokes against them. His two common shots are the cover drive and pull. Both are riskiy shots on these pitches and more importantly initially in the innings. The same goes with Ashraful. Although he has far more straighter bat, but the problem is that it doesn't come out often. What comes out is the eagerness to play strokes. But this way, they will continue to fail, specailly in their own country and sub-continent. They have to look to change their style of play. They have to look to spend more time. They have to look to play 250 balls to score hundreds not 130/140 balls. They have to look to take singles, cut down on boundry shots, play with soft hands and most importantly very very straight. Currently, whenever the bat comes down it is either to play a defensive stroke or to play a shot for a boundry. Instead, it should come down to play defensive shots with soft hands and straight bat and in search for gaps to take singles and only to fit fours when the ball deserves it.

Until and unless they start thinking on the lines of cutting down on flamboyance and look for effectiveness they will continue to struggle to get big scores and keep on frustrating.

[Spitfire_x86]

Nice post, I nominate it for frontpage.

BTW, what do you think about my idea of making Aftab a test opener?

[6alltheway]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86
Nice post, I nominate it for frontpage.

BTW, what do you think about my idea of making Aftab a test opener?

no ready, s. nafees is the best chioce

[Spitfire_x86]

I mean as a partner of S. Nafees. As a dominant partner, like Hayden/Sehwag/Gibbs

[exotic]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86
Nice post, I nominate it for frontpage.

BTW, what do you think about my idea of making Aftab a test opener?

Out of 18 test innings Aftab was out 17 times (9 times to the pacers and 8 times to the spinners). I haven't seen him lately in the tests, but the stats suggets that he is equally vulnerable against both pace and spin.

	Dismissed	Bowled	Ct (Fielder)	Ct (WK)	Stumped	LBW	% of Dismisal
Pace	9	0	3	4	0	2	53%
Spin	8	1	4	0	0	3	47%

[sadi]

he looks quite comfortable against pace bowling... I think if he does play test cricket, he should come at number 3... I know habibul bashar is so successful there but he can still score runs from number 4 and let aftab bat at number 3

[Spitfire_x86]

Originally Posted by exotic
Out of 18 test innings Aftab was out 17 times (9 times to the pacers and 8 times to the spinners). I haven't seen him lately in the tests, but the stats suggets that he is equally vulnerable against both pace and spin.

You can see that only 22.2% of his dismissal against pacers are from Bowled/LBW, while Bowled/LBW percentage against spinners is 50%. This suggests that he is a better player of pace.

[exotic]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86
You can see that only 22.2% of his dismissal against pacers are from Bowled/LBW, while Bowled/LBW percentage against spinners is 50%. This suggests that he is a better player of pace.

Yeah true, so far what i have seen of aftab his technique against spin is not that great. But we also remember that he was caught by wicketkeepers 4 times and out of 3 outs (ct by fielders) 2 were in the slip cordon, that makes 77.78% of those out against the pacers behind the wicket and add those two LBW, just do not suggest him to be a good opener, I guess, because opening is something very specialzed job. Actually its too early to comment on his potentials based on just 9 tests. I believe he doesn't open (u may argue that Rajin is doing well as opener in the ODI even though he doesn't open in domestic level, but imo rajin got the determination and technique to see the new ball off, and ofcourse we are talking about tests here) in our domestic matches as well. We should try him as opener (if we really want to see him in that position in the future) in the NCL first, if he comes good then it will be certainly a good news for us.

[sar2005]

should not be a bad ploy to try aftab as an aggressive opener in test. He is very good in over the top playing. But question is we have some other openers knocking the door.

[Tigers_eye]

Aftab at 3 is fine. We need a solid start in test. Nafees and Nafis can do the job well. Why do we have the notion of scoring at a higher rate in test or why do we want to be aggressive? This is a five day game. All of these boys need to learn how to value their wicket first. Build partnership. One can not win a test match in one session.

[sadi]

the only reason why aftab should play up the order is he plays pace better than spin, not because we need an aggresive opener.... didn't we have enough with aggresive stupid batting? We need steady batting... gotta build partnership in test matches...

[Spitfire_x86]

Originally Posted by sadi
the only reason why aftab should play up the order is he plays pace better than spin, not because we need an aggresive opener.... didn't we have enough with aggresive stupid batting? We need steady batting... gotta build partnership in test matches...

Aggressive batting and stupid batting is not the same thing. Didn't you hear what Gavaskar said about Rafique's innings?

I highly doubt that Dhoni is technically a better player than Aftab. But then how does he score so many runs in both forms of the game? He plays in the style which suits him best. It's not that he never did anything stupid in a crucial time, but he delivered more often than he failed. Aftab must play his natural game and learn to deal with match situaion at the same time.

[Sovik]

I think aftab and ash should not change their style. just have to be carefull selecting shots. they have the potential and they are great entertainers

[PoorFan]

Originally Posted by Cats_eye
Aftab at 3 is fine. We need a solid start in test. Nafees and Nafis can do the job well. Why do we have the notion of scoring at a higher rate in test or why do we want to be aggressive? This is a five day game. All of these boys need to learn how to value their wicket first. Build partnership. One can not win a test match in one session.

Sorry, may be it's off topic, nothing to do with batting style ...

I really don't understand why it so hard for Ash, Aftab and even Bashar to realize that in test it's all about "building an innings", "good partnership", and "play session by session". It's not about 30+ runs from 35 balls for one session like ODI. No one would have complain if they score 30+ runs from 100 balls, and get out after a 50+ runs of partnership. 3 to 4 slow 50+ runs of partnership can easily lead us to play 4th or 5th day in test. It's hard to believe that, still they don't realize these "building an innings", "good partnership", "playing session by session" after playing so many test till now.

Perhaps they don't have enough confidence and skill to stay long on the pitch, and just scared to death that they might get out with very few runs in the process, scoring slowly in test. We almost never saw any of our top and middle scored 30+ runs with a strike rate around 30%, it's very rare even if they have some, except that NI and Javed against Zimbo. I observed a few time, Bashar and Ash did tried to score slow, but got out around 10 to 30 runs most of the time, and I am sure they were not happy with those low score. More they fail, more they go for quick 40+ runs, before get out for low score and get dropped.

Once they got 40+ quick runs on board ( something like satisfactory zone of their innings ) before get out, they start to feel relax, and then try to play sensible, but most of the time they fail in the process by playing too many shots. Some time one or two of them get away with it, but rest of them fail as usual, hence there is no click all together. We lose control of test to our opponent by losing wicket regularly session by session, even one or two of us shows resistance and score respectable runs.

May be that's why even after so many test match, we cant even remember a single gritty ( slow ) 50+ innings in test, from our top order ( NI, SN, Ash, Bash, Aftab ), except that NI and JO against Zimbo.

[safaat]

I think that I failed to express my point. Yes i did say that Aftab weakness is spin, and perhaps batting higher up in the order would do him good. But my point isn't Aftab going up the order. My main point is him and Ashraful changing their method/style of play ON THESE SLOW, LOW AND TURNING PITCHES. both of them are stroke makers. And thus are best on picthes where the ball comes on to the bat. Thus these picthes do no suit the two. and on these pitches they need to play far more STRAIGHTER, AND AVOID EXPANSIVE SHOT SUCH AS THE COVER DRIVES, PULL, HOOK AND THE LOFTED SHOTS. THEY SHOULD PLAY WITH STRAIGHT BATS, LOOK FOR MORE SINGLES, USE SOFT HAND, AND CUT DOWN ON THE BOUNDRY SHOTS. WHENEVER THEY LOOK TO PLAY A SHOT THEY WANT IT BE A BOUNDRY, THEY SHOULD CHANGE THIS ATTITUDE OF THEIR, AND JUST TIME A SHOT, INSTEAD OF FORCING THE SHOT SO THAT IT GOES FOR A BOUNDRY.

Also they should realise that on these pitches, it is possible to score 100 of 130/140 balls, these picthes where 100s would come from 240/250 balls, and with the talent they have just by playing each delivery on its merit along with avoiding the riskiy shots. the main thing even after all these would be TO PLAY STRAIGHT AND LOOK FOR MORE SINGLES RATHER THAN BOUNDRIES

[sar2005]

Originally Posted by safaat
.......AND CUT DOWN ON THE BOUNDRY SHOTS.

You can't ask them to cut down the boundary shots. If the ball is there to hit, hit it. They should play their natural game what I think Aftab does in ODI but Ashraful tries more too often. Ash needs to check his improvisation a little bit. Those are risky shots and remember if you can make it, people say 'what a shot'. But if you fail, you give away your wicket which is bad for him as well as his team. Remember how he got out against ENG after scoring 94 of just 60 odd deliveries. His dismissal in last test innings was another example of his extra effort to improvisation.

Well, you can ask them to play their natural game according to the merit of the delivery. But not get bock-down completely (which Aftab did in test matches).

By the way, could you please change those CAPS letters to small? I think simply bolding them would be quite enough to emphasize those.

[sadi]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86
Aggressive batting and stupid batting is not the same thing. Didn't you hear what Gavaskar said about Rafique's innings?

I highly doubt that Dhoni is technically a better player than Aftab. But then how does he score so many runs in both forms of the game? He plays in the style which suits him best. It's not that he never did anything stupid in a crucial time, but he delivered more often than he failed. Aftab must play his natural game and learn to deal with match situaion at the same time.

I know what you are saying but do you really think our superstars know the difference? When they become aggresive, they tend to play shots in every ball and tries to hit everything out of the ground and then get out cheaply. Only once in a while, when they really get lucky, we see an innings like ashraful's 94 against england.

To me, Shahriar Nafees bat aggresively without playing stupid shots. Ashraful and Aftab, most of the times, they play stupid shots trying to be aggresive.

[nayef]

Both Ash and Aftab need to nudge singles till they reach around 20-25 ... by that point both r well set and whenever either of them cross that mark.. they usually get a decent score. Its all abt choosing which balls to play .. and as many suggested... which balls to hit for boundaries.