The left-arm quick, coming back from injury, caused problems for all the Australia batsmen he bowled at to add to his growing list of successes but on the day it was not enough for victory
Karthik Krishnaswamy in Bangalore21-Mar-20160:57
Mustafizur among best in the world – Shakib
Australia’s chase of 157 against Bangladesh at the Chinnaswamy Stadium was probably not any kind of advertisement for T20 cricket. There were two dropped catches, a number of needless dismissals to big shots, and an experienced fast-bowling captain who only bowled one over while using a struggling debutant for his entire quota, while defending a fighting but not massive total.In the midst of all that, a young and uniquely skilled fast bowler returned from injury and produced another high-quality display against a powerful batting side. He has done it against Pakistan and India and South Africa, and now Mustafizur Rahman has done it against Australia too.It’s hard to think of any left-arm quick – or any quick – quite like Mustafizur in the history of the game. There are other bowlers who use slower cutters and use them often, but deviation off the pitch is often a secondary concern behind change of pace. Mustafizur’s cutters flummox batsmen both by arriving a touch later than expected and by gripping and turning like a spinner bowled it. And so far, no one seems to have figured out how to pick it.There was a point during Mustafizur’s second over on Monday, when Shane Watson was dropped off his bowling, when the TV went into split-screen mode. On the left was the batsman’s view of Mustafizur’s stock ball, and on the right his slower one.These were slow-motion videos, and they could have been the same ball: the body and limbs of stock-ball Mustafizur and slower-ball Mustafizur were in perfect sync, almost frame for frame. Watching his hand closely gave away the difference between the two balls, but only at the point of release. Because, unlike other bowlers, Mustafizur wasn’t just disguising his slower ball; he was disguising his stock ball as well.Even while delivering the stock ball, Mustafizur’s wrist initially points in the direction of mid-off (to a right-handed batsman) before snapping around to face down the pitch, just before he releases the ball. Essentially, he snaps his wrist for both the stock ball and the cutter: he does it just prior to release for one ball and during the release of the other. It’s hard enough to tell the difference while watching slow-motion, split-screen replays. Try doing it in real time, while batting against him.To complicate matters further, Mustafizur sometimes bowls his stock ball with the seam upright, and at other times with a scrambled seam.One after another, Australia’s batsmen were confounded. Watson looked to whip a leg-stumpish ball through midwicket, and found himself playing too early. At mid-on, Mashrafe Mortaza was best placed to go for the catch looping up off the leading edge; an over-eager Mohammad Mithun made the early call at midwicket, however, misjudged the ball’s trajectory, and made a hash of it.A leaden-footed Mitchell Marsh pushed at the slower ball, tried to check his shot, and only ended up spooning it high into the off side. In the same over, he opened up both Marsh and Glenn Maxwell and beat their outside edges with that potent combination of left-arm angle, away movement, and perfect length.In all these instances, the slower balls did not give the batsmen enough time to adjust and play a different shot; it’s the difference between a 140kph (87mph) bowler bowling 125kph (77mph) slower balls and the same bowler bowling 110kph (68mph) slower balls.There were a couple of loose balls in his last over, overpitched quicker ones, and Maxwell put both away clinically, over the ropes.But aside from that, there were few outright bad balls in Mustafizur’s four overs. There were plenty of good ones, showing awareness of the batsman’s intentions and an excellent command of the left-armer’s angle. When he saw Usman Khawaja making himself room, he sent down a wide yorker that he couldn’t put bat to. He mixed up his lengths well too, firing in the full, straight ball to catch both Khawaja and Steven Smith unbalanced and falling over on the shuffle: the Khawaja lbw appeal was turned down, while Smith, trying to play around his pads and whip the ball away, was bowled between his legs.SPD Smith, bowled between the legs. Not too many bowlers can say they have done that.
