West Indian wickets.....

[Farhad]

I think this series proved to us one (and only one) thing. I dont think we've somehow gone worse in the space of just two months. All it shows us is that we are alot weaker in non-spinner-friendly wickets. Its no secret that our main bowling firepower (especially against Zim) comes from our spinners. This outcome is pretty simple IMO. The Zim tracks dont spin (according to cricinfo) whereas the subcontinental ones do. Thats the only reason we suddenly beat Zimbabwe by over a hundred runs in the Champions Trophy (subcontinental wicket) after a rather disappointing tour in zimbabwe just preceding that. The bad news, however, is that West Indian tracks are universally known to be fast-bowlers wickets i.e bouncy, hard ( Which means less traction and therefore, less spin )........We're gearing up for a pretty tough tournament in my opinion.......

[Kabir]

In today's match, Razzak has an economy rate of 3.60, after bowling 10 overs. The second best is Sakib, whose economy rate is 4.2 after bowling 10 overs. They both took 1 wicket each. Compare that with Mashrafee, Tapash and Shahadat. All of them have over 5 economy rate. Among these bowlers, Mashrafee got highest wickets - 3. But it came at the expense of some runs.

The reason I'm blabbering this much is because, may be a spinner-friendly wicket will make bowling difficult a little bit, but bowling good line, length, and tight...these are all upto the capabilities of the bowler. Even though we've got good spinners, we still have to rely on our pacers. And don't forget that the opponent teams have their own spinner attacks too.

So yes, although the wickets in WI may not be friendly for our spinners, they can nevertheless do their job moderately. We need a good batting lineup (which we have - but only disfunctional). Putting too much emphasis on our bowling attack (which IMO is 20 times better than our batting lineup) may put us back at square one.

[BD-Shardul]

I think WI wickets will produce bounce,as they are called juicy wickets.
This will also help in producing swing.

My assumption is that Aftab, Rasel, and Mortaza will do well in those wickets.

For Rafiq, and Rajjaq, wicket is not a matter. They will do well inshallah, and therefore BD should go with two spinners, regardless of wicket condition. Atleast they will check the flow of runs.

[nmhimal]

First we have to think about India and Sri Lanka, they both are in our group in world cup, they have Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble and Murli, What they can do in a spin friendly wicket we all know, so don’t plead for the spinner haven in WI, I would prefer a pacer track, bouncy wicket, it will be good for our team, we have mortoza, rajib, taposh and sharif, and I want see Aftab bowling in world cup, why we are not using his talent, remember his best bowing against NZ, he had 5 wickets, so we should use him more and more, then we can have both of our spinner rafiq and razzak in our best 11. Also we have some good memory in WI, hope tigers will prove again what they are capable of.

__________________
Yes we can, C'mon tiger, C'mon

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Last edited by nmhimal; February 11, 2007 at 07:16 AM..

[BangladeshFan]

most of the wickets are laid new i guess, so it is impossible to predict how they will behave. right thing is to take your best bowlers in the 15, covering all eventualities and then play an extra spinner or pacer depending on the track.

india/sl batsmen are adept at playing both pace and spin, so Bd shouldnt select the bowlers based on that. infact if u see their latest matches, pacers have gone for more runs than spinners.

[Sovik]

i read in an article, In last worldcup, ICC made sure the wickets are batting friendly and stays that way for 100 overs and i think ICC will do that again otherwise the pitches will be seamer friendly

[Ahmed_B]

Originally Posted by Kabir
In today's match, Razzak has an economy rate of 3.60, after bowling 10 overs. The second best is Sakib, whose economy rate is 4.2 after bowling 10 overs. They both took 1 wicket each. Compare that with Mashrafee, Tapash and Shahadat. All of them have over 5 economy rate....

That might very well have been because of the ZIM player's lack of skills to play spin as well as their over-cautiousness because of previous bad experiences against BD spinners.

We should never really judge the ability of our spinners from how they did against these ZIM players. Personally... I would not expect any extra-ordinary performances from BD spinners in the WI wickets against India or SL. We do have to form an accurate and decent 3-Pacer battery for the WC if we want to make any good impression at all.

[Miraz]

The Wickets of Trinidad (where Bangladesh's match will be played) is more bouncy than some other Caribbean wickets.

Here's a post from a Caribbean member of another cricket forum

Trinidad pitches as I have known possess high bounce and the Indians are a bit uncomfortable with that. Seeing India's poor record of playing in the Caribbean - although Trinidad has been one of their lucky venues - I think that SRI will top the group.

More about Trinidad

[akabir77]

what i remember from our last tour is that the pitches r almost close to subcontient kind of wkt. they don't have fast wkts like australi, SA or NZ.

But this doesn't surve us as we will play the countries which r most adopt to spin and on top i think we r very bad playing good spin.
I think best players in BD team can play against spin are:
Ashrafool, Mushfiq and Hablu(some what) rest is not even tested. remember we played in fast track against srilanka in the last ICC match so most of our top player have no clue (or we don't have clue about them) how they will play against good spin or pace..

[fwullah]

When was Mushfiq tested?

Besides Ashraful, Aftab, and Bashar, rest is not even tested.

[akabir77]

Originally Posted by fwullah
When was Mushfiq tested?

Besides Ashraful, Aftab, and Bashar, rest is not even tested.

why in england...

[TheWatcher]

This is from India's tour of West Indies, May 2006-

The track at the Queen's Park Oval looks hard and dry. Chief curator Shekhar Mano, who has been working hard on the pitch, feels that the pitch would have something for both the bowlers and the batsmen.

''It's going to offer good bounce and carry. Even the spinners will get good bounce, though not much turn for them is at the offings" he said.

The whole square was re-laid seven months back and since then only one ODI has been played. The match between West Indies and Zimbabwe turned out to be low scoring one and the pitch was criticised for being low and slow.

- Source

Look at the scorecard of 5th ODI, how much Sreesanth, Munaf, and Bhajji struggled. If the pitch is still the same way, it probably won't offer much turn or bounce, kind a like our Fatullah pitch.

It may be very bad news for Shahadat, his short deliveries will just turn into waist high longhops to be whopped. If he still refuses to bowl at fuller lengths, it may be better for us to go with Tapash.

For our spinners, they depend more on the drift of the ball than turn. Most of the time they just skid the ball to batsmen (especially Sakib). As long the grass is trimmed off, they should be ok.

For our batsmen, they have to adapt to the pace of the pitch.

[Tigers_eye]

Port of Spain - Thats where we are playing, is a batting paradise. runs will be scored from 270 to 300. No amount of Shahadat, Taposh, Sharif, Dollar, Aftab or Reza can have a under 5.5 econ. 40 overs for Mash, rafiq, razzak, sakib. I'd depend on Reza and Shahadat for the remaining 10 overs. Sometimes Shahadat can give us the big blow and reza can swing the bat better than Taposh, Sharif, Dollar.

One must play with their strength. We can't worry what Murali and kumble will bring. That will be handled by our batsmen. What we bring will be handled by Dada, Tendu, Sangakkara.

[sadi]

What worries me is our pacer's inability to use the seaming condition to their advantage. Shahadat thinks he can get everyone out with his short pitched stuff. He needs to grow up. Our third pacer issue is still not solved. But I don't think caribean wickets are as hard and bouncy as it used to be. It will be more in the slower side and should assist the spinners.

[cricketboy]

Probably the West Indian wickets are getting less and less fast bowling friendly as years pass by. I remember even in 1997 the pitches were much more hostile and Ambrose and Walsh were enjoying it but in 2004 in the series against India except one pitch(probably the one in Trinidad ) the others were batting friendly.

[Farhad]

Well, we'll find out in 14 days when we take on Bermuda......Hope our players can hit themselves back into form in the tri-nation series.

[Mohiul]

Ganguly made a comment regarding WI playing conditions after today's last match of the series against SL. He said conditions gonna be same like India. As I know Indian playing conditions is spinner friendly. Then is the WI playing contitions spinners friendly? I can recall Scotland skipper told the same. That time I did take it lightly but after Ganguly's comment I'm confused. What do you think?

"We're going to the World Cup in a good frame of mind. The wickets are going to be similar and we are quietly gelling into a very good outfit," he said.

Source: Ganguly's comment

[TheWatcher]

England bowler Jon Lewis believes conditions in the West Indies will favour batsmen during the World Cup.

Listen to Jon Lewis' opion on West Indian wickets

[Farhad]

Everybody seems to have a different opinion. I guess we cant be certain about anything yet. Heres Murali's words on the pitch:

With 432 one-day international wickets, it would be easy to pinpoint Muralitharan as a threat on the slow and low pitches in the West Indies, but he felt spinners would struggle. "The rules have changed now with the 20-over power plays coming so the spinners go out of the game, you can't play two or three spinners any more," he said. "We have only one spinner at the moment so fast bowlers have more chance [of success] because they bowl in the power play."

[akabir77]

well here is an article on ICC2007 website on WI pitches.. Like i said it will help spinners and swing bowlers and...
http://cricketworldcup.indya.com/Dis...ews_20070208_4


The nature of the pitches in the West Indies is akin to those in the sub-continent, especially India, with their dry and brittle surfaces. And though Windies bowling is associated with super quick bowlers from Wes Hall to Curtley Ambrose, spinners have also been successful in the Caribbean. The West Indies themselves have produced three of the greatest in Alf Valentine, Sonny Ramadhin and Lance Gibbs. But their successes have been in Test cricket. In the shorter version, it has been the lot of part-timers like Vivian Richards and Carl Hooper to play a supporting role to their awesome pace attack.

[RazabQ]

Good find akabir. Interesting how on these Indo-centric sites (here, S. Rajesh pieces on CI), BD is not even an afterthought. We are complete non-mentions.

[akabir77]

Originally Posted by RazabQ
Good find akabir. Interesting how on these Indo-centric sites (here, S. Rajesh pieces on CI), BD is not even an afterthought. We are complete non-mentions.

What can you do with bias people...

[RazabQ]

According to the tigercricket article, the Recreational ground - where we are playing Bermuda tomorrow - is spin friendly