Spin, spin and more spin: Bangladesh’s old habit burns them again in Mirpur

On Saturday, for 18 overs straight, Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto kept doing the same thing, expecting a different outcome.

The first 108 legal deliveries of the fourth innings were shared by Bangladesh’s spin trio of Taijul Islam, Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Nayeem Hasan.

On a Day 4 pitch at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur, this three-pronged spin attack was supposed to be Bangladesh’s key to victory against West Indies in the first Test.

They were supposed to bamboozle the Caribbean batters on a worn-down wicket, make up for the uninspiring performance of their batters, and give Bangladesh a 1-0 lead in the two-Test series, which would keep their lofty dreams of reaching the ICC World Test Championship’s final alive.

None of that happened.

Instead, the West Indian openers Brandon King and John Campbell put up an exhibition on how to bat on a turning track, using their feet to get forward or romp back, sweeping and reverse sweeping at will, putting the spinners under pressure and making them bowl on their terms.

Barring the occasional appeals for LBW, which were all turned down and all the reviews were unsuccessful due to umpire’s call, the West Indians dominated the proceedings.

By the time Shanto tossed the ball to a paceman, Shoriful Islam, the scorecard read 91 for no loss. The visitors were already more than halfway there, chasing 170. The match had virtually slipped away already.

Shoriful, who was welcomed to the attack with a hattrick of fours by King, brought Bangladesh its first success of the match in his second over, getting through the defences of John Campbell to break the 112-run opening stand.

The left-arm seamer was given four overs, before getting replaced by Hasan Mahmud. The right-armer also struck early, getting Tagnarine Chanderpaul caught off a bouncer.

With the pacers getting wickets almost immediately after joining the attack, the question naturally arises: why were they brought on so late?

The easy thing would be to put the blame on Shanto as the man who decides who bowls when, but that won’t be fair.

As this overdependence on spin in home Tests is not Shanto’s doing, it’s a mental block that Bangladesh have been carrying for much longer.

Almost five years back, Bangladesh suffered one of its more embarrassing defeats in Tests in Chattogram against the same opponents.

In that match, Bangladesh had set a target of 395 and were pushing for a win on the final day, having reduced West Indies to 110-3 at stumps on Day 4.

Bangladesh had four spinners in their XI, and were expected to strangle their opponents using them. Of them, Shakib Al Hasan couldn’t bowl due to an injury, but Taijul, Miraz and Nayeem did.

The three spinners bowled 114.3 overs together in that innings, but could not get the job done as debutant Kyle Mayers’ jaw-dropping double hundred earned the Caribbeans an incredible three-wicket win.

For a fifth-day pitch, that surface offered little to the spinners. And Mayers took full advantage of that, simply planting his front foot and smashing the spinners all around the ground.

Bangladesh had a pacer in the side in Mustafizur Rahman. He went wicketless in 13 overs, and has since drifted away from red-ball cricket.

A lot has changed since then. A much-hyped pace revolution took place in Bangladesh cricket. The Tigers now have pacers who can take wickets in the red-ball format in both home and away.

Before the first Test against West Indies, Bangladesh had played with three pacers in their last four home Tests – two each against Pakistan and Ireland – and won all of them.

Bangladesh went with two pacers against West Indies, perhaps to keep their pacers fresh for the South Africa tour which will begin right after this series.

But Hasan and Shoriful are no mugs, with the former leading the charge in Bangladesh’s historic Test win in August over Australia in Darwin with match figures of 9-111, and the latter claiming a seven-wicket haul in the second Test in his only outing.

Still, when Bangladesh needed a wicket against two openers who looked comfortable against the spinners and were quickly taking the match away, Shanto and the think-tank kept their faith in the spinners and didn’t give the pacers a chance.

This reluctance, even after the recent successes of the pacers, shows how ingrained the spin dependency is in Bangladesh cricket.

The defeat in the Mirpur Test was due to several factors. The two batting collapses in both innings – losing the final seven wickets for 59 runs in the first and losing their first six wickets for 53 in the second – perhaps were the biggest causes.

But the refusal to try a different route, even as the spinners searched for a footing, suggests the habit runs deeper than any one decision on one afternoon.