Bangladesh's pace bowling coach Alan Donald admitted skipper Shakib Al Hasan could make an impact if he bowled enough on day three of the one-off Test when Ireland batters put up a massive resistance to give themselves a faint hopes of pulling of a miraculous victory.
Resuming the day three at 27-4, and a fear of being rolled out in a session to concede an innings defeat, Ireland batters, led by Lorcan Tucker's debut century fought back impeccably to end the day on 286-8 and led Bangladesh by 131 runs.
According to Tucker, anything near 170-180 could give them a chance of winning the match. And to Bangladesh's dismay, Andy McBrine was batting on 71.
But the talk of the day was why Shakib refrained him from bowling enough. On Day two, Shakib bowled seven overs and took two wicket to spark an Irish collapse. But on third day, he bowled just six overs.
Even in the first innings of Ireland, Shakib bowled only three overs.
"I must admit, I have no idea. 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," Donald said.
"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."
Asked whether Shakib's bowling could make a difference, Donald said: "I'm sure, 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."
Ireland's resistance on third day came as surprising to Donald also.
"I think a massive tick today was the resilience that Ireland showed. We knew that coming to the ground today wasn't gonna be a walk in the park.
It wasn't going to be disrespected to what Ireland might throw at us. I thought Tector and initially his partner (Moor). It's been a long day, I can't remember about it," the former South African great said.
But he gave a full credit to Tucker who hit a century on debut to lead the Irish revolution.
"I thought Tucker batted out of this world. I really thought it was a fantastic knock. The way he used his feet against our spinners, the way he got into it our channel against the seamers. He took it to us. He counter-punched and he had a resilient partner at the other end that looked, you know, it was a very, very good partnership and it's a fantastic hundred. Just a little bit surprised about, I think the life's gone a little bit out of the pitch. The odd ball has spun a little bit."
"I thought our bowling attack fought hard today. I thought Taijul was outstanding with his consistency and trying to make things happen. And I thought it was well supported by the rest of the attack. I thought at one stage we could have maybe been a little bit more creative and maybe set a one-sided field, like an off-side field, and just trying to stick to that channel for a while. But you know, that's why we sit on the sidelines and we can't control things when we sit out there."
Source: Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha