Early Word on the Haque Duo

[al Furqaan]

Having finally gotten a chance to watch their entire innings I have to say I'm overall impressed. Here's my take on it.

Anamul has footwork issues as everyone has noticed but his issues are limited to playing pace only. His footwork is solid against spin and he plays spin quite confidently. On more seam friendly tracks he is a prime candidate to edging behind but his technique improves as the ball comes in closer to the stumps. He will be hard to be dislodged via lbw or clean bowleds. Like Mominul and Nasir, he is lightening quick between the wickets and we can count on him to score an extra 5-10 runs per innings just from tight running alone. He plays with soft hands and is not afraid of opening the face to play balls safely behind square to pick up easy singles when the boundaries are harder to get. He is an excellent cutter and dabber of the ball, a decent driver, and very strong with leg glances/whips and is generally superb on anything to the on side. He can play all shots against spinners with ease. He seems to be able to bat well in all gears, and has a knack for crease occupation and scoring mammoth knocks.

There are only two things I can see that he needs to work on. The most pressing is his driving against pace on the off side. He must get his feet moving. He cuts well against pace as this is a backfoot shot that is naturally played away from the body, but his driving is very imbalanced and will get him out more often than not on livelier tracks. He needs to come onto the front foot instead of playing from the crease.

Mominul played more of a cameo knock thus far, but its evident that he has a better technique as of right now. He plays all his shots reasonably well and is a strokemaker. A very good player to have. His main problems that he needs to work on are his trouble making really big scores. 40s and 50s are good, but he needs to threaten the triple digits more when he gets the opportunity.

Both seem to be quite athletic in the field, perhaps not as much as Aftab in his prime or anywhere close to Nasir now, but are still very very good. Overall, they are extremely promising players who can serve us for the next 15 years or more.