#Title

SHAKIB’S BATTING

a far cry from 2019 WC
ABDULLAH AL MEHDI
Against Pakistan, Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan posted his highest score in the ongoing World Cup, which only highlighted how far the all-rounder has fallen from the incredible form with the bat he enjoyed in the previous edition of the competition.
The tournament he had in 2019 is the kind any player would dream of having at least once in cricket’s most coveted event.
Shakib batted at number three in that edition, specifically asking the team management to let him bat at that elevated position and came into the tournament having done his homework.
Despite many of his team mates’ struggles during the tournament, Shakib appeared to be in a zone of his own, scoring 606 runs at the tournament at an average of over 86 with two tons and five fifties.
This World Cup has been a far cry from his performances in 2019. So far, Shakib has scored just 104 runs in six innings at an average of just 17.33.
The difference in form is also apparent from the way he has been playing the short balls in this edition compared to the one four years back.
In 2019, he was getting well on top of the bouncers and looked mostly in control against them. But this year, he has gotten out to rising deliveries multiple times.
Yesterday at Kolkata’s Eden Garden, Shakib came in at number six following the 79-run stand between Liton Das and Mahmudullah Riyad, the latter pushed further up the order due to his consistency.
Bangladesh needed another partnership to build on from the previous one and then kick on in the final overs.
But Shakib was too cautious and he seemingly couldn’t find a way to rotate the strike as it took nine deliveries to open his account.
He scored 20 off his first 44 deliveries and while Mahmudullah had reached his fifty at a brisk pace, Shakib’s confidence level appeared to be at the opposite spectrum.
“Of course the match situation was such that if he had gotten out then, the match would go out of hand since there was a chance to get at least 250,” Nazmul Abedeen Fahim, who worked with Shakib when the all-rounder came to Bangladesh mid-tournament , told The Daily Star yesterday
“It was noticeable that he was very aware of his form. He seemed low on confidence. Maybe he wanted to see the ball better but usually it [head position] isn’t like that,” he added.
Shakib grinded at the middle for 64 balls, scoring 43 runs thanks to the hat-trick of boundaries he hit against Iftikhar Ahmed in the 37th over.
But right as it seemed Shakib was returning to his old self, he fell to a short delivery, trying to hook Haris Rauf.
Against the pacer, there was a noticeable change in his stance as he was facing towards mid-on, which is unusual for him.
Fahim feels that the weight of captaincy may be weighing down on Shakib and hurting his batting.
“Captaincy is always a headache since you don’t get time to think about your own game, you think about the team’s plans.
“When he faces a problem, he overcomes it quite quickly and gets out of the patch. This time it hasn’t happened,” Fahim said.