As Bangladesh gears up to take on mighty Australia, following their record-breaking victory against West Indies, the question again came to the fore whether they can deal with the barrage of short balls from Aussie fast bowlers, who are more potent in executing the plan than the Caribbean pacers, reports BSS.
And when Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc, the top two pacers of Australia have been in threatening form, tearing apart the batting line up of any team in this World Cup, the question is obvious.
Bangladesh’s vulnerability against quality short balls was widely exposed in their match against New Zealand and England, which they eventually lost. Only Shakib Al Hasan could tackle the short balls with patience against those two teams, while some of his colleagues’ struggle looked nasty.
West Indies bowlers also came up with barrage of short balls but the difference was that they had little control over their line and length, helping Bangladesh batsmen to treat it with utter disdain. Such utter disdain that Bangladesh completed the hefty chase of 322 with 51 balls to spare.
However no matter whether West Indian bowlers were less impactful than the Kiwi and English bowlers, Liton Das, the man who made his World Cup debut remarkable with a sensational 69 ball-94 runs knock against West Indies, said, short balls are no longer an issue for them.
Considering they have been facing short balls and well-directed bouncers in every match, Liton believed they are now quite used to it.
Having said that Liton believed Bangladesh is in a much better place to face the Australians after comfortably handling West Indies’ short balls in Taunton.
“They try short balls against every Asian team. We succeed in 5-6 short balls from 10 short balls we face. So foreign teams will always try to trouble us with the short-ball and they have some quick bowlers too,” said Liton.
“The way we handled the short ball today, I think we have to do the same against Australia and have to play with a little more focus too,” he added.
Australia’s two fast bowlers-Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins-had already created sensation in this World Cup, troubling the batsmen more often than not. And as they are used to operate bowling at the north of 90 miles per hour, their short balls are also quite effective. But Bangladesh’s confidence is now such high state that they have little concern over the team or bowlers. Liton said, they are just thinking to execute their plan properly, no matter what the team is or bowlers are.
“We are just thinking to execute our plan properly because we know if we can bring up our A game, we have the capability of beating any team of the world,” he concluded.