Bangladesh pace bowling coach Allan Donald asserted that he doesn’t know why their skipper Shakib al Hasan did not bowl much on the third day of the one-off Test against Ireland at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Thursday.
Shakib bowled only six overs that raised a few eyebrows as that paved the way for the Irish to gain a 131-run lead with two wickets in hand.
Lorcan Tucker hit his maiden hundred (108) along with Andy McBrine (71 not out) and Harry Tector (55) helped the tourists to finish the third day at 286-8 in their second innings.
‘I must admit, I have no idea( why he didn’t bowl much),' Donald said after the day's game.
“He seems fit. He came off a couple of times and just for like bathroom breaks. But I'm not quite sure. I think he, you know, wanted to maybe give the attack a chance to go and do the job but I really don't know why he hasn't bowled enough today,” he said after the day’s game.
‘You know, 13 overs, two for 20 -odd. I thought the second new ball, when we took it today, was gonna be a big factor. And it honestly didn't spin that much like it did last night. I thought it was gonna be a new ball type of pitch, and once you get in on this wicket, you could score runs. But no, I'll leave that question you asked to Shakib,’ he said adding that if Shakib had bowled more overs the fate of the tie could have been different.
‘Yeah, I'm sure( we missed him) because what Shakib does amazingly well is he shuts one end down and (it's tough to) because he's such an experienced campaigner, he varies his pace really smartly. Although there was no real turn all day long, I thought he would've been a guy that would control one end and really shut one end down,’.
‘But listen, I'll go back to the other guys as well. I thought Miraz, Taijul, the three seamers tried their guts out today. And it didn't quite happen. But tomorrow morning's a big morning. I mean, they are 130 runs ahead now if I'm correct. So, tomorrow we gotta go bang, bang quickly and get batting,” he said.
The former legendary bowler further admitted that he was impressed with the way Ireland made a comeback in the competition adding that bowlers need to be creative when they play on any surface.
“Let me tell you, that's one of the flattest wickets I've seen. And there's not a lot of life for the quicks in here, especially halfway down. And we've seen a couple of balls not carry to the keeper. Hey, but that's Test cricket. No one said Test cricket's gonna be easy.’
‘We gotta deal with it. We've gotta find ways. We've gotta be creative, we've gotta be patient, persistent. If you know that you're doing everything possible, sitting on the sideline there, every plan that we discussed on the breaks, try this, let's go for a while and didn't come off. And that's what had happened today,’ he said.
