Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan is charged up to help his side turns the things around against Zimbabwe after two unlucky dismissals in the first two game, said technical consultant Sridharan Sriram.
After spending a good time in tri-nation series in New Zealand, where he struck back-to-back half-centuries, Shakib was dismissed here in T20 World Cup with two single digit figure-7 against Netherlands and 1 against South Africa.
According to Sriram, Shakib’s performance will be key to help the side bounce back and those two unlucky dismissals would motivate him to do well.
“He’s just gotten world No. 1 allrounder, so he’s had a fantastic series in New Zealand, and he’s just had two innings. I think it was the right shot at that time because a small boundary against a legspinner, 99 times out of 100 you’ll hit that for six. If that had gone for six — even in the last game, he was unlucky not to review, ball pitched outside of the leg-stump,” Sriram said.
“What do you make of that with a great player like Shakib Al Hasan had two unlucky dismissals? I think he’s up for the contest here.”
Having said that, Sriram conceded Gabba will pose a different kind of challenge because of the pace and bounce.
“The wicket looks a typical Gabba wicket. It’ll have good pace, bounce and carry. Maybe a little bit of initial movement early on, but I think a very good batting wicket, fast outfield, value for shots. You get value for shots here. If you can time the ball into pockets. It’ll be a good game, a high-scoring, 160, 170 kind of game,” he added.
After losing to South Africa in the last match, batting coach Jamie Siddons said that the reason behind losing to South Africa was batters kept trying hitting sixes and they are not big hitters, so they should change themselves so they should be smarter now. Sriram said it’s how the batters should apply them.
“The dimensions of the ground. You’ve got to know — it’s very different to playing in the subcontinent or very different to playing even in some places like New Zealand. Australia brings with it its own challenges. I think we spoke about that in the first press conference, about the dimensions,” he remarked.
“Some grounds are diagonally big, some grounds have big side boundaries, some have straight but long boundaries, straight. I think playing around with the dimensions and knowing the batters’ strengths, hitting pockets and hitting boundaries are important, and I think Jamie has spoken to the boys about that.”
