e_Paper, Thursday, September 7, 2017

Sports
19
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2017
DT
Nasir’s funny gesture with
umpire Llong
Bangladesh all-rounder Nasir Hossain
made a comical move by exhibiting the
“out” signal in front of on-field umpire
Nigel Llong which created quite a buzz
on social media. The incident happened
in the 109th over. Off-spinner
Mehedi Hasan Miraz bowled to tailender
Pat Cummins outside off and
the batsman in question offered no
shot. The bowler appealed but umpire
gave it not out. Captain Mushfiqur
Rahim reviewed the decision and
eventually it got overturned. But the
funny part is, when Llong was showing
the overturned decision, Nasir, standing
just beside the umpire, copied
him and produced the out signal. The
funny gesture from Nasir amused the
local crowd and a few moments later,
it went viral.
Dropped chances hurt
Bangladesh progress
Bangladesh’s fielding effort was not
upto the mark on day two and the
below-par catching continued on day
PLAYS OF THE DAY
three as well. A few catches were put
down on day three which should have
been taken. The course of the Australian
innings could have changed if those
chances were taken. The first dropped
catch came in the 84th over. Miraz put
down a sitter at third slip. All-rounder
Glenn Maxwell was the batsman and
he was batting on 10 off 32 balls then.
He went on to score 38 off 98 balls.
The struggling Soumya Sarkar missed
a tough chance of vice captain David
Warner in the 87th over. Miraz also
missed a caught and bowled chance,
that of all-rounder Hilton Cartwright,
in the 91st over, which ultimately
injured him for a short time as the ball
hit his rib cage. Soumya again dropped
a dolly at first slip in the first ball of the
117th over. The lucky batter was lower-order
batsman Ashton Agar and the
unlucky bowler was all-rounder Shakib
al Hasan. Shakib eventually cleaned
up Agar five balls later. But such kind
of misses by a first slip fielder looked
shocking.
Ali Shahriyar Bappa from Chittagong
Warner: Bangladesh need
to look after Mustafizur
• Ali Shahriyar Bappa from
Chittagong
Australia opener David Warner said
Bangladesh need to look after the
fast bowlers, especially left-arm
paceman Mustafizur Rahman, the
Aussie vice captain’s Sunrisers Hyderabad
team mate.
The left-handed batsman made
the remark when queried to share
his insight into Mustafizur’s performance
in the two-match Test series
between the two teams.
“I think he (Mustafizur) is a very
good bowler. I think the one thing
that I think Bangladesh have to
do is look after him. We’ve been
through it for an extensive period
of time as well. You have to look
after your fast bowlers, so if he’s
your No 1 strike bowler moving forward
when you’ve got a couple of
Test matches and one-dayers coming
up, you’ve really got to monitor
that and you’ve got to obviously
prioritise whether it’s Test cricket,
one-day cricket, T20 cricket,”
Warner told the media following
the third day’s play of the Chittagong
Test at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury
Stadium in Chittagong.
Mustafizur, who plays under
Warder for IPL T20 franchise Sunrisers
Hyderabad, has not been
able to meet expectations in recent
times.
The Tigers pacer made a flying
to start to his international career
in 2015, in the home series against
India.
Nasir Hossain imitates on-field umpire Nigel Llong
David Warner jumps to celebrate his 20th Test hundred
But since then, and more so after
surgery on his shoulder in August
last year, Mustafizur has been
found struggling on occasions.
Mustafizur in his maiden appearance
for Sunrisers in the IPL
was key to the side’s title winning
campaign.
But just the following season,
the Bangladesh pacer was found
sitting on the bench more often
than not.
Warner said Mustafizur and
the Bangladesh team can think of
prioritising a format, rather than
pushing in all three in order to get
the best result.
“That’s obviously a conversation
for them to have with him but
I think he’s an exceptional talent,
an exceptional bowler, and it’s obviously
upon him to work out if he
wants to play all three forms, one
form, or two forms,” Warner explained.
Warner and Mustafizur are great
friends both on and off the field and
the former rates the latter highly.
Mustafizur in the first Test
against Australia last month remained
wicket-less, bowling only
nine overs in the game.
In the Chittagong Test, where
host Bangladesh are looking for a
clean sweep, Mustafizur’s fortunes
have improved slightly.
The left-armer picked up three
wickets to cut off the Aussie lead.
Australia are currently leading
by 72 with a wicket in hand in the
first innings, replying to Bangladesh’s
305 all out. •
BCB
Patient Warner terms
Ctg ton as his best
• Ali Shahriyar Bappa
from Chittagong
Australia vice captain David
Warner admitted that his century
against Bangladesh in the second
and final Test match at Zahur
Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium is
definitely among his best innings in
terms of patience as the conditions
were one of the hottest he has ever
played in.
Warner was not out on 88 after
day two and added 35 more runs on
day three, picking up his 20th Test
century in the port city yesterday.
“I think from a patience point
of view, definitely it was my best
ton. I always talk about trying to
bat long periods for time in these
conditions and by far that’s the
hottest I’ve ever played in. It was
quite challenging to be out there.
Coming off [Tuesday], it was every
minute that I was out there. We
were out there for 100 overs the
day before,” Warner told the media
after the day’s play.
“A lot of credit has to go to
the two fast bowlers as well. The
amount of work that they’ve put
in, I think they’ve both bowled 20
overs apiece in this heat. It takes
someone with some good fitness
to bowl through that definitely,” he
said.
Warner’s track record was not
good in Asia before the Bangladesh
Tests but back-to-back hundreds
indicate his growing maturity in
challenging sub-continent conditions.
MD MANIK
“It’s a tough environment to
come out and try to play your shots
and play your natural game. You
have to find a way and for me it’s
taken almost 16, 17 Tests in these
conditions to work out what my
game plan is and stick to it. As I
said before, if they play on your
ego a little bit, they shut down your
runs, they shut down your boundary
options, and you’ve got find the
ones,” Warner explained.
“You’ve got to be prepared to bat
time and you’ve got to have the fitness
edge as well to do that. That’s
probably the thing that’s going to
keep motivating me more now to
show to myself that I’ve done that,
and now moving forward I can
achieve the same success that I’ve
had so far over here moving down
the line,” he added.
In the process he became the
sixth Australia player after Bob
Simpson, Allan Border, Damien
Martyn, Mike Hussey (twice) and
Michael Clarke to hit consecutive
Test hundreds in Asia.
But Warner said he is focusing
more on team performance rather
than personal milestone.
“It is satisfying for myself but
at the end of the day we’re here to
win games. I’m doing myself and
the team as much favours as I can
by trying to put on runs, as everyone
else is. At the moment we’ve
got a lead of 77 (72) I think it is, so
we’ve got to try and capitalise on
that [today] morning to push forward
for maybe a 100 (run lead),”
he concluded. •