We expected the wicket to spin more: Tamim

Bangladesh left-handed opener Tamim Iqbal said that the Tigers had expected the wicket to spin more after a day of cricket that saw the Tigers struggle both with bat and ball against the West Indies at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur today. 

At the end of the Day 2 of the second and final Test against the West Indies, Bangladesh trail by 304 runs with just six wickets in hand.

Even after strong criticism for picking just a sole front-line pacer in the Chattogram Test, Bangladesh still followed the same path for the Mirpur Test. Bangladesh picked the spin trio of Mehedi Hasan Miraz, Taijul Islam and Nayeem Hasan with a sole front-line pacer Abu Jayed and a part-time medium pacer Soumya Sarkar, who came in as a replacement for star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan. 

And for the better part of the second day of the Test today, the Windies batsmen kept frustrating the spin trio. Overnight batsman Johsua Da Silva played a brilliant 187-ball 92-run knock while Alzarri Joseph, who replaced pacer Kemar Roach for the Test, scored 82 off 108 deliveries.    

"The plan we had was not for the wicket we are playing. When a home team is picking three spinners, it is not a rocket science to guess that we expected the wicket to spin more. But, unfortunately, the wicket did not spin [as much as we hoped] for whatever the reason maybe," said Tamim after the day's play. 

The three spinners bowled a total of 103.2 overs out of the 142.2 bowled by Bangladesh during West Indies' first innings. Despite bowling more than 70 per cent of the total overs, the three spinners could scalp five wickets while the two pacers picked up the other five.

Bangladesh have had success in the past in Tests by depending on the spinners. The Tigers registered historic Test wins against Australia in 2017 and England in 2016 at the same venue by employing three or more spinners. But it seems like the age-old spin ploy of the Tigers is not working this time but still, Tamim did not forget to remind of those instances of success.

"We moved forward with a plan but just because the wicket did not support spinners, there will be a lot of discussions made regarding this. When we won two Tests against big teams [against Australia in 2017 and against England in 2016] and even when we beat West Indies in their last tour [in 2018], we went with the same combination and we were very successful. Unfortunately, wicket did not support the spinners," concluded Tamim.