Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Alastair Cook leads from the front

Mike Atherton, Chief Cricket Correspondent, Chittagong & , : {}

Sooner rather than later, someone was going to compensate for the stability courtesy lavished on the form of Englands majority appropriate player. Kevin Pietersen chose yesterday to move closure to that sold vitriolic section and in the association of Alastair Cook helped to reject the immature Bangladesh captain, Shakib al Hasan, to 4 days of curved self-doubt.

Pietersen fell one short of a hundred, bowled as he looked to run a true round from Abdur Razzaq, the left-arm spinner, down to third man for a single. He was mad as he walked off, partly since it was the fifth time that he has depressed in the nineties in Test matches and partly since the possibility for a hulk measure had left begging.

Top performers do not dont think about slights as well simply and he will feel that 99 was deficient atonement opposite the spinners who had caused him a small pique and so, as he crossed the rope, he threw afar his steel sheet and gloves in disgust. Nevertheless, the signals from this innings were transparent enough: he has marinated the small technical glitch that was discouraging him opposite left-arm turn and can see brazen to increasing capability once again.

Cook batted via the day. When he became the fifth England captain to measure a hundred in his initial compare as captain, and when he went over 150, it was transparent that we were witnessing a poignant achievement. Regardless of the mostly dirty bowling on display, and the husky fielding, there were still pre-match nerves to overcome and, prohibited as it was, his thoroughness indispensable to be unwavering.

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In a vicious way, though, this was a day after that as majority courtesy was expected to concentration on the Bangladesh captain as Englands and, in particular, Shakibs visualisation at the toss. In promulgation England in to bat in near-perfect conditions, Shakib cursed his bowlers to a day of endless toil. As insertions go, this was one of the worst.

The proof of it was tough to fathom. Bangladesh picked 4 spinners and the sunrise was clear, the object already prohibited and the representation bare. Ultimately it competence have been a box of an wickedness complex, after a decade of defeats, impinging on usual sense. Whatever the reasons, though, Shakib threw afar a gilt-edged event to carry out the game, and to find out a small about Englands batsmen underneath fourth-innings pressure.

Shakibs munificence was not spurned. Michael Carberry played fluently until he swept at a true round and missed. Jonathan Trott was detrimental to be since out held at the behind of off his steel sheet when set. Cook and Pietersen afterwards total in a partnership that was, in any case of the opposition, critical for both men, since Cook indispensable to showcase his fool around inside of the horizon of his captaincy ambitions, and Pietersen indispensable to put to bed the idea that he cannot fool around left-arm spin.

Cooks fluency opposite turn has not regularly been evident, but it was yesterday as he benefited from a multiple of haphazard bowling and a larger range of stroke. In particular, he right away sweeps convincingly, so since prior to he could find himself marooned opposite a great spinner, right away he has the capability to turn the set on over at will. As well as dab sweeps, that brought him singles to excellent leg, there was the occasional absolute toil brush over mid-wicket, dual of that brought him sixes, one of them receiving him to his eleventh Test hundred.

Pietersen has been operative on a small technical improvements during the week, predominantly perplexing not to get his head as well far outward the line of the ball. The formula were strong roughly rught away as he began to thread the left-arm spinners by mid-off and extra-cover, instead of his lucky mid-wicket area, a shift that highlighted again the naivety of Shakibs captaincy, since his fields unsuccessful to simulate Pietersens alteration.

All told, it was a distressing initial day for Shakib. Any hoped-for early transformation was absent, so that 3 slips fast became two, by the sixth over the cover range was stable and by the eighth he had to call on spin.

Mind you, you would not enviousness Shakib the bent at his disposal: Shahadat Hossain is the majority walking opening bowler in universe cricket a speedster usually in his own clear imagination, huffing and blasting to the double and grunting on recover as if he was promulgation down fearsome thunderbolts rather than peaceful wobblers.

At times, it took me behind to Fenners or the Parks, and the run-around we students used to be since by county batsmen, inspired for a small career-boosting statistics. Competitive it was not.

England: First Innings*A N Cook not out 158M A Carberry lbw b Mahmudullah 30I J L Trott c Rahim b Rubel Hossain 39K P Pietersen b Razzak 99P D Collingwood not out 32Extras (b 4, lb 3, w 2, nb Seven) 16Total (3 wkts, 90 overs) 374I R Bell, †M J Prior, S C J Broad, G P Swann, T T Bresnan and S T Finn to bat.Fall of wickets: 1-72, 2-149, 3-319.Bowling: Shahadat Hossain 12-2-50-0; Rubel Hossain 13-0-79-1; Al Hasan 21-2-80-0; Islam 11-1-38-0; Mahmudullah 14-1-45-1, Razzak 17-1-71-1; Ahmed 1-0-2-0; Iqbal 1-0-2-0.

Bangladesh: Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Junaid Siddique, Aftab Ahmed, Mahmudullah, *Shakib Al Hasan, †Mushfiqur Rahim, Naeem Islam, Abdur Razzak, Rubel Hossain, Shahadat Hossain.

Umpires: A L Hill (New Zealand) and R J Tucker (Australia).

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