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Tigers' spinvKiwis' pace

In five Tests against New Zealand at home, Bangladesh have picked 56 wickets, 49 of which were taken by spinners. Of the 164 wickets taken against Bangladesh in Mirpur, 92 were by pacers.

Sports Reporter
Bangladesh's team composition was the main talking point in the lead-up to the first Test. The Tigers could have either gone in with one pacer and three spinners or two pacers and three spinners by dropping one of the eight batsmen they have traditionally preferred to play at home.
Eventually, Bangladesh went for the more sensible option of playing two pacers and dropping Mahamadullah Riyad.
Going in with just one pacer is by no means a conventional strategy in Tests. But the reason why the option was on the table for Bangladesh was simply because of their spinners' dominance against the Kiwis at home.
In the five Tests that Bangladesh have played against New Zealand at home, the hosts have picked a total of 56 wickets, 49 of which were taken by the spinners.
Till date Bangladesh have employed eleven pacers against the Kiwis at home with Mashrafe Bin Mortaza's three wickets in two matches topping the wickets col- umn. Mashrafe is the only bowler to have taken two wickets in a Test match against the Kiwis at home.
The spinners, on the other hand, have done considerably better. Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Rafique and more recently, Shohag Gazi have all taken five-fors against the Kiwis. Shakib's seven for 36 in 2008 remains the best bowling figure by a Bangladeshi in Tests.
In the last two years, New Zealand's tours of Sri Lanka and India have seen similar results.
In the two Tests against India, New Zealand lost 31 of 39 wickets to spinners and 26 of 38 against Sri Lanka.
While the visitors did manage to see off Bangladesh's three-man spin attack on a newly laid wicket in Ghittagong, the task might be more challenging in Mirpur where the ball is expected to turn midway through the Test. It is something that the visitors, who are chasing a win, are aware of.
"The wicket may turn more than it did in Chittagong. We are preparing for every scenario. It is not necessarily easy to get results. Five days is a long time in a Test match. If we improve on our first Test performance, we can get a result," opener Peter Fulton told reporters at Mirpur yesterday.
While the visitors are busy
concentrating on spin, Bangladesh will be looking to fend off their opponent's pace attack. Despite the traditional 'slow and low' wickets prepared in Mirpur, pace bowling has consistently proved to be a thorn for the hosts; something that New Zealand's bowling coach Shane Bond had mentioned before the first Test.
Of the 164 wickets taken against Bangladesh in Mirpur, 92 of them have gone to pacers.
It is a feature commonly seen in matches at home. The West Indian pacers have picked up 84 out of 111 wickets, India have 77 out of 130, Zimbabwe have 45 out of 67 and the list goes on. The Kiwi pacers however have picked up only 27 of the 81 wickets in Bangladesh. The main reason behind that is the exemplar}' performance of Daniel Vettori, who has taken 34 wickets alone.
With the series decider starting tomorrow, the chinks in armour of the respective camps should be sorted out. The next five days will decide whether the Tigers' spin or the Kiwis' pace hold sway.