Tour match: England (155-3) beat Bangladesh Cricket Board XI (151-8) by seven wickets.
“Hang the Deejay” was one of Morrissey’s more forthright lines during his Smiths heyday and one 4,000 Bangladeshi cricket supporters probably agreed with yesterday, after Matt Prior was reprieved because the local disc jockey in Fatullah failed to still the music before he played his shot.
Prior had 52 at the time and only really noticed the umpire’s call of "dead ball" after he’d hoiked it down long-on’s throat while the Bangla pop of “Pretty Girls Dancing” blared from the loudspeakers. Not that Prior’s wicket would have altered the result of a match England, batting second, looked to have won from the moment their bowlers restricted the Bangladesh Cricket Board XI to 151-8 off 37 overs.
Unlike in Tuesday’s game here Prior ceded the wicket-keeping gloves to Craig Kieswetter, so he needed to make some runs just to keep his name in the mix for Sunday’s opening one-day international. Coming in at number three, following Kevin Pietersen’s lame dismissal for six, he began cautiously, as if feeling the hot, insistent breath of youth on his neck.
Once he’d settled he played some pleasing shots, especially against Mahmudul Hasan’s off-spin, which he twice struck for successive boundaries. Yet, it is his batting, rather than is wicket-keeping, that is giving England cause for concern, something Andy Flower, England’s team director, confirmed in the post-match press conference.
“Today was an opportunity for Matt to get up front and spend some time in the middle,” Flower said yesterday. “Batting at six or seven is a specialist area and he's shown glimpses of good skill.
"It's not easy to bat in that area and put in performances that make a difference. It's a tricky area to bat. I can't tell you if he’ll keep wicket on Sunday because that would be telling you our side. He's in the squad as a wicket-keeper batsman so it is an option.”
As a batsman, Prior is naturally aggressive and can hit the ball hard. But like so many batsmen of that ilk, and Andrew Flintoff is another example, they lack the ability to work the ball around for four and five runs an over without taking risks as Graham Thorpe and Neil Fairbrother once did. In short, they hit the ball in obvious ways and that allows opponents to build pressure on them by setting run-saving fields.
With the World Twenty20 set for this May and with England needing to name their squad, the need to assess Kieswetter’s keeping (they will only take one keeper to the tournament) is pressing.
“We don't know about selection for the World T20," said Flower. "But if we're to go with Craig, if he had a great series against Bangladesh, today was a gentle introduction for him in a low pressure environment.
“It was an opportunity to look at him with behind the stumps as I don't know much about his cricket. Also it was an opportunity for him to get used to the side and the side to get used to him with the gloves on.”
With Stuart Broad rested, England’s bowling attack was fronted by four Yorkshiremen - Ryan Sidebottom, Tim Bresnan, Liam Plunkett and Ajmal Shahzad, though only two are likely to play on Sunday.
They say that when Yorkshire are strong England are strong (OK Sidebottom plays for Notts and Plunkett for Durham), and all four bowled well on a pitch offering little movement despite the savage overnight storms that reduced the game to 37-overs-a-side.
As so often, Sidebottom’s efforts were not without the odd tizzy, after he was denied two wickets in his opening two overs; the first of them when the umpire failed to give left-hander, Shahriar Nafees, out caught behind to the opening ball of the day; the second when James Tredwell put down a sitter off him at second slip. Red-faced with effort at the best of times, you could have boiled a kettle on Sidebottom’s head.
Tredwell later made up for the lapse with a catch and a tidy spell of 2-17 with his off-breaks. If the pitch for Sunday’s match looks like it will grip, he could yet join Graeme Swann as the second spinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment