The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Tiger burns to give B’desh glimmer of hope
Rahim’s fighting ton in first innings stretches Test to Day five, but it has perhaps hastened his fall as captain, wicket-keeper
THESE AREN’T good times to be Mushfiqur Rahim. It feels absurd to say that about a batsman who soaked up pressure for 381 minutes and hit a fine hundred to push the game to the final day. However, the noose is slowly tightening for Rahim, the captain, and Rahim, the wicketkeeper.
It’spastmeremurmursnow.abangladesh newspaperhasevenquotedthebcbpresident Nazmul Hassan as saying his “time is up”. It’s one of those reports that other journalists are wary to touch and run away with, but it won’t be a surprise if a mutual decision from the board and Rahim emerges soon. On Monday, when he would walk out, it might be one of the last times he captains Bangladesh.
A gusty skilful batsman, an emotional and proud man, a ’keeper struggling with fitness issues,andacaptainwhosetacticalnousisrapidlyunderfire,willhavetocomeupwithaspecial knock to save Bangladesh, who have 7 wickets intact and a day to survive.
On Saturday, when The Indian Express asked the board president Hassan about Rahim, he didn’t offer support to the captain. Instead, he said that the captaincy was definitely in the radar and would be decided soon.
The crux of the problem can be put thus: Rahim is too good a batsman to bat so low downtheorder.hisfinger-injuriesaren’tmaking his job as a wicket keeper any easier. His captaincy skills – read tactical nous – too are under the scanner.
Is he under too much pressure to don all the roles? The BCB thinks it’s not necessary to do all the three roles. Left to himself, it’s clear that he wants all the three. Shakib Al Hasan said as much the other day. “He still wants to keep, that’s his positive thinking. I think whatever he is doing at the moment, keeping batting and captaincy it’s obviously very difficult forhim,butheissomeonewholikestodothat stuff. He likes to get involved with everything. I think that’s a good way for him and the way he is going, he can certainly stay as it is.”
However, it’s likely that the decision might be beyond Rahim or Shakib.
No one can question his batting, though. And no one does. Courage? Tick. Shot-making? Tick. Defence? Tick. For 381 minutes, he went on and on. It’s quite a sight to watch him. There have been many short-statured batsmen before but with Rahim, the bat actually looks too long for him. He has to not only hold it loose but push the bat away wider off him to keep it on the ground; for if he kept it any closer — like behind his right foot as most batsmen do — it would pop up abnormally high. Or so it seems.
A heart of steel
The bowlers gun for his head. It’s feels almost silly not to do. In the recent times, New Zealanderswentaboutitwithgreatgusto.inan hour, Rahim, already batting with injured fingersinbothhands,tooknearly20blowsonhis body. He carried on. Until Tim Southee settled the issue, moving the immovable with a snorter that crashed against the helmet and puthiminthehospital.theindianstootriedfor the last two days — not as much, but enough. The ball jammed Rahim’s fingers. He took treatment and slapped the next ball — a bouncer — to the boundary.
On Sunday, he swayed away expertly from a few, and pulled one over fine-leg for a six. He ran down the track to hit R Ashwin’s deliveries tomidwicketboundary.inbetween,hewould lean forward to push, prod and nurdle it around. Mehedi Hasan left early in the morning but Rahim hung on, dragging Bangladesh along with him. When India realised they couldn’t go through Rahim, they went around him. Bhuvneshwar Kumar cracked through Hasan’s defences with a reverse-seaming delivery to leave the stumps in disarray. Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma kept hammering in the bouncers against Taijul Islam who tried to weave out of the way but finding it increasingly hard to do so.
A digression here to note the attitudinal change. India weren’t always this bumperhappy against tailenders in the past. It could have been argued that they were a bit soft as well. Times, they are changing. And so when Yadavandishantkeptpepperinginthebouncers, only the watchers from previous generation would have been surprised. Eventually, Islamfelltoaumeshbouncer–theballevaded thebatofferedasafaceshieldandbrushedthe gloves enroute to Wriddhiman Saha.
Finally, Rahim fell, becoming R Ashwin’s 250 Test wicket. It’s difficult to believe that the quickest to 250 wickets is an offspinner. For someone whose art isn’t wristy as Muttiah Muralitharan’s was, and is a more of a fingerspinner, this is quite a stunning achievement. It was apt that he had a good scalp in Rahim to get to the landmark. Rahim tried to sweep it, but it bobbed off the gloves to Saha.
The rest of the day went according to the script. Of the Indians that is. They got a lead of 458-runs lead after bashing around for a session — the highlight was Cheteshwar Pujara hooking Taskin Ahmed for a six — and gave themselves a session and a day to bowl out Bangladesh. Bangladesh resisted for a while but Ashwin came on his own on a pitch that finally showed some signs of turn.
Hehadtamimiqbalgropingforwardindefence but the ball caught the inside edge and ricocheted off the pad to Virat Kohli at first slip. He then slipped in a ripper to get rid of Mominulhaque.tosseduparoundthelegand middle, it spun sharply to take the wood off the forward prod and was swallowed in slips. Inbetween,ajinkyarahaneshowed,ashehas done for a while now, that he is the new Rahul Dravid in the slips. He stayed low and thrust his right hand out in a flash to hold on a tough chance offered by Soumya Sarkar off Ravindra Jadeja.
Withthepressureclosinginonhim,shakib Al Hasan did what he does – counterattacked his way out of trouble, enough for the journalists to question his approach and enough for thebattingcoachthilansamaraweera,whose batting couldn’t have been anymore different, to giggle. A popular newspaper in Bangladesh Protom Alo had carried a big photo of Shakib andplasteredwordsofapoetthatmeant:"my wish is to die", hinting at the self-destructive ways of his batting. Harsh, but Bangladesh as a cricketing country wants to quickly shed the ‘amaetureish’ tag in Test cricket. Sometimes, thecricketersdon'tquitematchuptotheemotional demands.
Theotherinterestingcharacterintheteam, and one who would walk out to bat with Shakibonmondaymorning,ismahmudullah, called Riyadh by the team-mates and fans. In ideal world, he would have been the frontrunnertotakeoverthetestcaptaincyfromrahim. But he has been going through a lean patch. However,hehasshownsomegumptioninthis Test.inthefirstinnings,hebattledthroughthe wonderful reverse-swinging spell from Umesh, but it remains to be seen how he wouldfareonthelastdayofthetest.ifhefalls, Rahim would come out and at the moment it seems,evenamatch-savingtonmightnotsave him from losing his captaincy. In fact, it might even hasten the hands of the board.