All parties resolve to put aside their differences for the successful staging of the coming season

Daniel Brettig13-Aug-2020Australian cricket’s iciest winter thawed ever so slightly on Thursday as Cricket Australia, its state association owners and players association partners resolved to set aside a host of differences in order to stage a challenging coming season in the time of Covid-19.The meeting of the Australian Cricket Council, a collective of CA’s chairman Earl Eddings, his state association counterparts and also the Australian Cricketers Association chairman Greg Dyer, was held via video link and concluded with the telling note that the group will convene again a mere two weeks from now. Given that it was last assembled back in October 2019 in unimaginably different and calmer times, that alone is an achievement.Since the conclusion of the 2019-20 summer, CA and the states have squabbled endlessly over issues of finances, coronavirus contingencies and communication, in a conflagration of discontent that has seen some 200 staff axed from the game, not least the former CA chief executive Kevin Roberts and a handful of other senior figures. CA’s board has seen the exit of Michael Kasprowicz, while Jacquie Hey’s exit is also set to take place later this year.Nominations committee discussions for the board, which will see Paul Green from Tasmania and Richard Freudenstein of New South Wales also up for re-election in October, feature Eddings, Tasmania’s chairman Andrew Gaggin, the New South Wales chairman John Knox and, after Kasprowicz’s exit, the Queensland chairman Chris Simpson.Anger among the states has at times reached the sort of mutinous level at which change to the very structure of the CA board has been mooted, with the suggestion that the current system of nine independent directors be replaced by a hybrid of six direct representatives for the states and three independents.Eddings, though beneficiary of a wellspring of goodwill not shared by his ex-CEO Roberts, has at times been scrambling to keep his head above water amid a host of parallel issues at ICC level.Cricket Australia is seeking a solution to their ongoing negotiations with the states•Getty ImagesPolitically, Eddings has been able to stay afloat by keeping a majority of the states from pushing for open revolt, even as Queensland and NSW have maintained a position of opposition, specifically to CA’s requests for cuts to state distributions worth almost A$130 million between them but also to broader themes of command and control. An August 31 election for board directors to Cricket Victoria may see this power balance alter again.At the same time, an agreement reached with the ACA to pause revenue calculations that influence player payments, until more is known about the state of the game’s finances for the summer of 2020-21, was valuable in calming the noises emanating from an organisation with a proud history but also a well-developed sense of when to go on the defensive.Nevertheless, it is the onset of the season itself that was always likely to shift idle minds to the bread and butter work of preparing for cricket, even at a time when Victoria remains in hard lockdown and other states are extremely wary of not doing likewise.Meeting attendees on Thursday were briefed on CA’s rich range of scenarios for the summer, while also given re-affirmation that the governing body is committed to staging full international and domestic schedules including the Sheffield Shield in its entirety.Rather than cutting back the schedule pre-emptively, plans call for a full program to begin with that will only be reduced as and when it is impossible to get all fixtures in before the season ends next year.

The CSK batsman gave a telling reminder to those who dumped him out of India’s 2019 World Cup squad

Sidharth Monga20-Sep-202022:10

Rayudu dominated Bumrah today – Gambhir

Two retirement announcements from Chennai Super Kings players dominated the airwaves this year. Both MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina received their deserved accolades, but it would be fair to say it was difficult to imagine either of them in an India shirt again. Compare that to a shocking announcement last year that failed to create a ripple.Ambati Rayudu should have been in England last July if it hadn’t been for the whimsical decisions of the national selectors and the team management. He had proven over 20 innings in six months that he was the man for the role in India’s middle order. He averaged 43 and struck at 84 in this period. He showed he could rebuild, he showed he could tackle spin, and he showed he could dominate when dominating was the need of the hour. Especially promising was his 90 to help India win from 18 for 4 in seaming conditions in their penultimate series before the World Cup. As it turned out, a similar scoreline against the same opposition knocked India out of the World Cup.Three lean scores in the next series, and Rayudu was dropped to accommodate KL Rahul, a player too good to leave out from many a side, but someone who wasn’t yet ready to play that middle-order role. Rayudu eventually was left out of India’s World Cup squad.Then Vijay Shankar, the “three-dimensional” player that led to Rayudu’s legendary “3d glasses” jibe at chief selector MSK Prasad, got injured. Surely you thought this was time for Rayudu? Apparently not. Then Shikhar Dhawan was ruled out of the World Cup. And India still found a way to keep out the one player who had proved himself in that specific middle-order role. He had lost out to a dashing wicketkeeper-batsman and another opener. Neither of them was 3D.Rayudu had had enough. In a huff, he announced he was retiring from all formats of cricket. He was 34 at that time, and wasn’t dealing with a career-threatening injury. There is no way a cricket employer should accept such a retirement from all cricket before giving the player proper counselling. This was the year 2019, not 1969.Ambati Rayudu hit a match-winning 48-ball 71•BCCINot long ago, Jimmy Neesham, a cricketer who found redemption at the same World Cup, thought he was done with the game. When he informed his players’ association that he had had enough of cricket, they convinced him to take a break from the game and then make a considered decision. During the break, he rediscovered his love for it and made a successful comeback. Rayudu didn’t have a player association to talk to, and his bosses at BCCI accepted the retirement with one sentence of appreciation.Rayudu has perhaps paid the price for his temper and his high emotions throughout his cricket career. While his outburst against Prasad’s selection of an unproven allrounder – nothing against Vijay Shankar – was refreshing in a cricket ecosystem where dissent is fraught with danger, you wonder how much part it played in his non-selection even after two vacancies showed up. India’s preferred No. 4 had gone to being persona non grata in one series before the big World Cup. Knowing Rayudu, that retirement call was not surprising.It is good, though, that Rayudu chose to make a comeback. A private person if ever there was one in Indian cricket, Rayudu has not credited anyone for influencing that rethink. Knowing the number of bridges he has burnt along the way, it is hard to see anyone outside that Super Kings set-up influencing that change of mind. If indeed it took an outsider. Rayudu just said he realised he loved the game too much to stop playing when he was still young and fit.On the evidence of Rayudu’s first big match back, he has made the absolute correct call. He walked in at 6 for 2 with the ball swinging and seaming, and then successfully took on Jasprit Bumrah and eliminated the threat of spin even before the dew came in to make their job even tougher. His 71 off 48 in a low-scoring match was head and shoulders above anyone involved in the game. The value of his innings is evident from how ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats adjust his absolute strike rate of 142.55 to a Smart Strike Rate of 157.32.Rayudu made sure Faf du Plessis’s anchor role didn’t hurt his side. His long stay at the wicket, and his favourable match-up against left-arm pace, meant Mumbai were forced to delay the return of Trent Boult to such an extent that Boult was left to bowl at the death, where he doesn’t usually do well. Rayudu’s coach at Super Kings, Stephen Fleming, put his comeback in perspective.”The last year was a difficult year for a number of players on the fringe of that World Cup squad,” Fleming said. “That occupied a lot of minds. Certainly with the form of some of our players this year, it is very much total commitment to CSK. Rayudu has been an emotional player throughout the years for us. He has been nothing short of fantastic. Again today he turned the game around. His experience, and also his skill set, was a major part for us to win today.”This was an innings of a free man. Someone who didn’t have to bother about the selectors and their thought process. It needn’t be so. Rayudu will only be 35 by the time the T20 World Cup rolls into India, Covid-19-permitting, next year. This IPL, where he will be the main man for Super Kings in Raina’s absence, is a great opportunity for him to leave the selectors and the India team management an uncomfortable poser. At least force them to come up with a new reason.

He wants to win Tests away from home, and looks likely to get many chances to do exactly that

Shashank Kishore13-Jan-2021The Oval, September 2018. Hanuma Vihari was looking around nervously inside dressing room, trying to get his debutant’s pre-match speech out of the way. This was a challenge for someone of few words but Vihari gathered himself enough to say, effectively, “I want to do well for India in Test cricket, especially overseas.”Be careful of what you wish for, they say. Vihari is now seen as an overseas specialist, with 11 of his 12 Tests so far at foreign venues, in conditions ranging from the soft turf at The Oval to the bounce of Perth, the swing of Wellington to the drop-ins of Melbourne. Along the way he’s ground out 90 minutes on Boxing Day for eight runs, opening the batting after being told last minute; defied a fearsome attack of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood at the new WACA ground; tried to prevent a top-order wobble at Basin Reserve against Tim Southee, Neil Wagner and Trent Boult.Related

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With him now ruled out of the Brisbane Test, Vihari might again have to wait for another six months for his next assignment, in England. Either the World Test Championship final, if India qualify, or the Tests against England that will follow.It’s unlikely, he’d make the XI, even if fit, for next month’s home series against England, giving him the opportunity to reap batting rewards on the flat beds of Chennai or Ahmedabad, the venues for that series. At home, India prefer the exuberance of a Hardik Pandya and the five-bowlers insurance.For this very reason, it’ll be unfair to judge Vihari through the prism of his numbers alone: A Test average of 32 in 21 innings, with a solitary century, in Kingston.It was a rearguard for the ages – R Ashwin and Hanuma Vihari embrace after a job brilliantly done•AFP via Getty Images

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The overseas specialist tag was almost written against his name when he flew to England at a day’s notice in August 2018 as a middle-order batting reinforcement, even though India had Karun Nair as a reserve middle-order batsman on that tour. Two days into the Test, he was walking out to save India from a top-order collapse in overcast conditions, with the light fading.Vihari was welcomed by a beaming James Anderson, who soon had him struggling. The brain asked Vihari move forward, but the feet just wouldn’t. He played and missed, got rapped on the pads, survived a loud leg-before appeal that should have sent him back for a duck had it been reviewed, got hit on the body to rising deliveries. He also received a mouthful from Ben Stokes. He weathered all of that to grind his way to a half-century the next day.That night, his mother sent him a message. It said, “My life’s mission has been fulfilled.” She had once spent a portion of her savings to buy her teenaged son a bowling machine and then fed balls into it tirelessly for three hours every evening on a small plot of land near their home in Hyderabad.The current Australia tour is his second to the country; his first, in 2018-19, was when his willingness to accept new challenges in unfamiliar conditions – like opening after being pencilled in to the middle order – impressed the team management. He had already displayed maturity and, over his eight years in domestic cricket, a reputation for being someone who typified single-mindedness. Now there was the simple matter of moving up a level. For the first time since his India debut, he looked set to play four straight Tests – potentially eight innings.Prior to the series, in a rare display of public backing for a player, Virat Kohli had said, “I expect Hanuma Vihari to be a key batsman for us this series.” With Kohli away for three Tests, against quality seamers, this was to be an opportunity for Vihari to show his steel.On debut, at The Oval, Hanuma Vihari ground out a half-century in a three-four innings•Getty ImagesHe started well with a century in the warm-up first-class fixture, but scores of 16, 8 and 21 in the first two Tests brought back those clouds of doubt even if, in his mind, he was doing most things right. That India won at the MCG meant the scrutiny wasn’t as close as it might have been otherwise. In Sydney, whatever could go wrong went wrong. Vihari ran himself out in the first innings, having misjudged a single to mid-off, then put down a catch at square leg. In the second innings, he walked out with defeat looming on the final day, having to bat out the better part of two sessions with one injured batsman in R Ashwin and the tail.Early into his innings, Vihari tweaked his right hamstring to the extent that he couldn’t even walk. It’s the kind of injury for which physios take you off the field, but there was no option but to carry on. He was batting on adrenaline, having popped painkillers.You know what happened next: Vihari played out 161 deliveries to save, with Ashwin, India a Test – it was a rearguard for the ages. There would have been a lot on his mind – the implications of failure, for one. Sitting out the home series against England, and the IPL, wondering when he would get another game. But Vihari dug deep and batted for close to four hours. The 23*, his highest in five outings in the Test series, might be the most important runs he has made in his career, with the series, and his place, on the line.

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The mental fortitude has been evident from the start of his cricketing life. As a 12-year-old, Vihari batted to make an unbeaten 82 for his school – St Andrew’s – two days after his father had passed away. Years later, it was this very experience he recalled at the school’s Sports Day Function, shortly before he received the Indian call-up.Unlike many others, Vihari doesn’t get easily affected by circumstances or what people make of him. He has been branded a one-format player; he doesn’t get picked in the IPL. He is considered a hard-working grafter with limited skill sets. But it’s the love for batting and cricket that keeps him going, any form, even box cricket in dressing rooms during rain breaks. If bowlers are ready to run in, Vihari is unlikely to pass up an opportunity to face them.The only Test century so far – Hanuma Vihari thanks the maker in Kingston•AFP / Getty ImagesIn 2015, he was ignored at the IPL despite working on changing his batting tempo. That day, he decided that he would make it to the IPL because teams would want him for the value he offered, rather than him changing the very foundation of his game for short-term gains. He took off to England and spent the next three summers playing in the Essex League. He forged new friendships, lived on his own in rooms that are like pigeonholes in comparison to the luxury of The Langham. He gave back to the club by coaching young kids during the week; the motive was to enhance his overall game by taking on additional responsibility.Daniel Hagger, his team-mate at Hutton Cricket Club, remembers meeting a determined young professional seeking not merely to improve as a cricketer but also to soak up life lessons. “We were once chatting about his aspirations and goals when he left England and he spontaneously said: ‘I want to play Test cricket’. I told him, ‘You’re amazing, but India has so many quality batsmen. How sure are you?’ At the time, I thought it was a pipe dream, but it’s a reality now. Obviously he’s single-minded and had that determination about him, and it rubbed off on all of us. He liked people who set themselves goals and leave no stone unturned in achieving them.”When Vihari made his Test debut at The Oval three years ago, the club – then playing their final league game of the season – arranged for a TV set in their dressing room. Hutton were batting but those in the dressing room had their eyes on the TV, not at the middle, rooting for an Indian batsman, their mate, to overcome the swing of Anderson and Stuart Broad in the dark. “That’s the first time ever we wanted an Indian batsman to get the better of our bowlers,” Hagger laughs.Such qualities make Vihari a likeable character, one who enjoys the respect of his team. Ajinkya Rahane echoed that at the press conference after the Sydney Test when he said they weren’t ever worried about Vihari’s lack of big runs because he had been batting well and doing the right things. The injury may have come at a terrible time, but Vihari is unlikely to be too perturbed by when he’s going to play next.It will probably be in England, the country where he made his debut, one that has given him friends, acclaim, and the steely resolve to be a top-drawer cricketer. If it happens, it could complete a full circle of sorts in Vihari’s young career. And he’ll have a chance to put into action his own words spoken at The Oval. “I want to win Tests for India, overseas.”

We take a look at how six players who were recently released by their franchises did in the T20 tournament

Shashank Kishore01-Feb-2021Karun Nair
Four years ago, he was India’s second triple centurion in Tests. Since then, his career has nosedived to the extent that there are murmurs over his place even in the Karnataka setup. At IPL 2020, he featured in just three games for the Kings XI Punjab, who had splurged good money for him in 2019. While Nair returned to lead Karnataka – for whom he last made a century in any format back in 2017-18 – six innings in various positions at SMA 2020-21 yielded just 93 runs. There is quality for sure, but the question is whether he can rejuvenate a career that is at a crossroads.Kedar Jadhav
Once considered the ultimate utility cricketer, Jadhav was let go by the Chennai Super Kings after a poor IPL 2020 in which he made only 62 runs in five innings, his struggles to up the pace in the middle overs all too evident. With MS Dhoni not using him as a go-to bowler anymore, Jadhav’s auction price of INR 7.8 crore may have gone against him. At SMA 2020-21, his team, Maharashtra, finished bottom of their group, managing just one win in five games. Jadhav, though, was among their brighter spots, making 193 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 132. His best, an unbeaten 45-ball 84 against Chhattisgarh in a chase of 192, took them to their only win of the competition.Shivam Dube
Not too long ago, Dube was Hardik Pandya’s like-for-like replacement, but impactful performances have been few and far between. He last played for India in February 2020. At the IPL, he was hardly used as a bowler and couldn’t quite deliver the finishing kick with the bat. Having been signed for INR 5 crore, he has now been released by the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Among the senior players for Mumbai in a poor SMA 2020-21, where they lost all their five games, Dube top-scored with 161 runs in five innings, striking at 138.79; the numbers better than other established batsmen like Suryakumar Yadav, Aditya Tare, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sarfaraz Khan. With the ball, he conceded runs at an economy of 7.50 in the 14 overs he delivered.K Gowtham is in search of a fourth IPL franchise after being released by Kings XI Punjab•BCCIK Gowtham
At INR 6.2 crore, Gowtham was among the more expensive Indian picks at the previous auction but one poor season with the Kings XI later, he is in search of a fourth franchise. Between being released and being back in the auction pool, Gowtham was called in as a reserve bowler for the Indian Test team for the home series against England. Prior to that, he featured in four SMA games for Karnataka, picking up four wickets with his fastish offspinners. His handy hitting lower down the order could yet make him a viable option for several franchises.Piyush Chawla
Two-time IPL winner and the third-highest wicket-taker in the tournament’s history, Chawla could be on the lookout for a fourth IPL team, unless the Super Kings buy him back for a portion of his INR 6.75 crore price tag. He had a poor first season with the Super Kings, going at an economy of 9.09 and picking up just six wickets in seven matches. While Chawla last played for India in 2012, he’s continued to be a regular in domestic cricket. A staple for Gujarat for the last three seasons, he picked up five wickets in as many matches with his legspin at an economy of 6.30 at SMA 2020-21.Mohit Sharma
One of Dhoni’s trump cards during India’s run to the semi-finals of the 2015 World Cup, Sharma has been laid low by poor form and injuries since then. While he hasn’t been an IPL regular, his appearances for Haryana in domestic cricket have dwindled too. He last featured in a competitive game 18 months prior to his lone appearance in IPL 2020. That one game for the Delhi Capitals, who signed him for INR 50 lakh, turned out to be uneventful – he went for 45 in four overs. The emergence of a gun pace attack consigned him to the bench after that. His form at SMA 2020-21 wasn’t inspiring either, his two wickets in six games coming at an economy of 8.33 and average of 100.

Our correspondent hatches a foolproof plan to exact revenge for subcontinental dustbowls

Alan Gardner16-Mar-2021″No, has no brain, and the Tin Man no heart, English batsmen have no technique against the twirly stuff. It never hurts to remind them of that fact – an approach Sunil Gavaskar seemed to enthusiastically embrace on TV commentary.Of course, a few little explosions on a first-day surface might help give those inner demons a nudge, and England were practically spun and done from the moment the Chennai groundsman lost his watering can after the first Test. Even Root, who had been playing spin in his plimsolls for the preceding month, found his innate Englishness impossible to overcome (although at least a top score of 40 from seven innings meant we didn’t have to start having the “conversion” chat once again).Never mind that often it was the ball not spinning that caused so much damage. That just proves the diabolical lengths these foreigners go to – coming up with deliveries that look like they are designed to go around corners in the manner of a heat-seeking missile, only to mooch straight on through the yawning gap you’ve quite deliberately left in your forward defensive.Related

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Ever since dear old Bernie Bosanquet came up with the googly, the English establishment has been suspicious of using such underhand means to take wickets. More than a century on, this moralistic stance has been extended to the point where England all but refuse to produce any spinners of their own. If you can’t win wherever you go in the world with a steady diet of right-arm seam, well, that’s not for us, thanks.Fortunately for the English sense of propriety, there will be a chance to teach India a lesson or two in return when they come over to Blighty this summer. And just as England can’t play spin, everyone knows India haven’t got any fast bowlers to worry about… right?

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Far be it from us to judge, since arranging our sock drawer is a struggle, never mind a T20 tournament in a pandemic – but you can’t help feel that if the organisers of the Pakistan Super League had put as much thought into biosecurity as they did for plugging a certain brand of tea on the TV coverage (the beverage of choice for commentators, cameramen, ground staff and assorted random fans), things might have gone better. Even Sri Lanka Cricket, with its famously low bar for administrative excellence – see Briefings passim – managed to pull off hosting the Lanka Premier League, having seemingly sketched out the idea on the back of a packet of face masks a few weeks in advance. Given how long it has taken to get top-level international and franchise cricket back into Pakistan, allowing all and sundry to leave their bubbles to go for a coffee looks a fairly big oversight; and having your competition postponed due to Covid twice within a year is only “world-beating” in the Boris Johnson sense.

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“Always leave them wanting more.” That’s what they say in show business. In cricket, supply and demand can be a bit more complex – although, let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a good un-retirement? Shahid Afridi has made a post-playing career out of them, and it seems Chris Gayle is going to take a similar approach (particularly after the recent revelation that rather than being a 41-year-old, Afridi is actually – shock, horror – way older). Anyway, Gayle returned to the West Indies fold against Sri Lanka declaring himself ready to fill “whatever role they want me to play”. For good measure, he added: “If it’s opening, I’m ready, No. 3, No. 5 – I’m pretty much flexible. I will still be the best No. 5 in the world, best No. 3 in the world.” The words of a born showman… and after scoring 29 runs from 37 balls in three innings, West Indies might agree he certainly left them wanting more than that.

Currently, there seems no permanent solution to give fast bowling any leverage and their pacers and batsmen are lacking preparation for playing overseas

Mohammad Isam09-Feb-2021Bangladesh’s reputation as a strong home side suffered another blow this week when West Indies beat them by three wickets in Chattogram. The manner of defeat has put them under further scrutiny, as their much-vaunted spin attack – albeit minus Shakib Al Hasan – couldn’t finish the job on the final day.West Indies’ debutants Kyle Mayers and Nkrumah Bonner dominated the spinners for most of the first two sessions on the final day, which started with the visitors requiring a further 285 to win. Mayers put the finishing touches with his double-century in the last session, in which West Indies scored the last 129 runs.The defeat has evened out Bangladesh’s win-loss home record over the last five years, a period that has seen unprecedented number of Test wins compared to the barren previous 15 years.Related

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The winning spurt at home has come after an overt change in strategy in 2016 when the Bangladesh team management leaned on roughed up pitches that start breaking from the second or the third day itself. The strategy paid off in the very first series when they got their maiden Test win against England. The three spinners – Shakib, Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Taijul Islam – had ended up bowling 90% of the overs in the series for the hosts.They used the same tactic against Australia in 2017, but Nathan Lyon’s 22 wickets – including 13 for 154 in Chattogram – should have served as a warning that perhaps it was time to move on. The cracks in this strategy became even clearer against Sri Lanka in early 2018 when the Chattogram curator couldn’t quite serve what they wanted, before the visitors’ spinners crushed Bangladesh in Mirpur. Later in the same year, Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh by 151 runs in Sylhet and in 2019, Rashid Khan & co handed them a 224-run defeat.A break-up of Bangladesh’s home record since 2000•ESPNcricinfo LtdAustralia, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan all hit back with their own spinners, but it wasn’t the case for West Indies in Chattogram this time. They chased the game for the first four days before their batsmen cashed in on mostly short and wide deliveries from the home spinners.What became obvious was that the visitors, despite their lack of experience of playing on these pitches, didn’t have to face many challenges as the three fingerspinners were not in great rhythm. Bangladesh had the highly skillful Mustafizur Rahman as their lone pacer, but he too was hamstrung by his problem with running onto the danger area.Without a proper pace attack, Bangladesh tend to miss out on elements like swing, seam and reverse swing. The turning pitches don’t allow pace bowlers to prosper and their own batsmen have had struggles as well. Since 2016, there hasn’t been any home advantage for Bangladesh’s batsmen, who also face difficult overseas conditions.But none of that mattered. Beating England and Australia for the first time in Tests grabbed headlines, while the 2018 Test series win over West Indies – both wins achieved within three days – was a show of Bangladesh’s might at home.Their away form is an entirely different story and it is only getting worse. Bangladesh’s pace bowlers are mostly under-prepared for places like South Africa, New Zealand, India and Pakistan. Even in domestic cricket, most first-class teams have been after better spin strategies, with very little support available for pacers. There is no getting away from this strategy though – not least against West Indies in the second Test in Dhaka.Changes in pitches for home internationals is the only change that matters. There have been suggestions over the years to prepare domestic pitches that help fast bowlers so that they can travel overseas and be better prepared to bowl long spells. There hasn’t been a lot of effort made in that regard, though.In fact, nothing has been done to move away from this one-dimensional spin-first strategy. The BCB enjoys one-off successes, and since they are already well invested in ODIs and T20Is, there hasn’t been much talk that suggests a change in intentions. There has been a lot of talk about the revival of fast bowling in the country, and a recent spate of good performances in the BCB President’s Cup and the Bangabandhu T20 have been encouraging.Currently, there seems no permanent solution to give fast bowling any leverage. As long as slow, low and abrasive pitches bring the one-off Test win, producing spin-friendly tracks looks like being Bangladesh’s only strategy. Great batting conditions or a proper environment for fast bowling remains a distant dream, so when Bangladesh’s spinners have bad days – like they did in Chattogram on Sunday – results will follow suit.