By Richard LordBefore the start of Bangladesh’s tour of Zimbabwe, which ended last weekend, the visitors looked very much the favorites. Fresh from an encouraging Test performance in Sri Lanka, and having showed some promising form in One-Day Internationals over the past few years, Bangladesh faced a Zimbabwe side demoralized after a thrashing in the Caribbean.But after both the Test and Twenty20 International series finished 1-1, and Zimbabwe won the ODI series 2-1, the home team is definitely feeling happier. Notably, Zimbabwe has unearthed a fine crop of young seam bowlers, while Bangladesh will be left ruing the way in which the same old problems with its batting resurfaced with a vengeance. Bangladesh’s problems eventually prompted the shock resignation of an emotional Mushfiqur Rahim from the team captaincy at the end of the ODI series—a decision the player says he regretted.
Pretty much all of Zimbabwe’s seamers were impressive: Kyle Jarvis, Shingi Masakadza and Keegan Meth in the Tests, and Brian Vitori and Tendai Chatara in various limited-overs matches. Crucially for the team’s long-term Test prospects, Zimbabwe has managed to break out of its default setting during the six-year exile from Test cricket that ended two years ago of fielding a spin-dominated attack.
One of Bangladesh’s key problems, conversely, along with its perennially flaky batting order, has been its failure to develop a crop of consistent seamers. Although it does have the disadvantage of not playing on seam-friendly surfaces at home.
Zimbabwe will also find the going more difficult away from home, particularly in Asia, because the spinners it cultivated during its years as a limited-overs-only outfit were containing bowlers rather than wicket-takers. Consequently, someone like Prosper Utseya can get away with an ODI bowling average of 47.30 because he bowls a lot of dot balls, conceding just 4.30 runs an over, but he’s not much of a threat in Tests.
Zimbabwe’s batting, however, remains dangerously reliant on captain Brendan Taylor. Although Hamilton Masakadza again showed his unfulfilled potential, belying his average of just 26.20 with a gritty second-innings century in a losing cause in the second Test. Taylor roared back into form spectacularly in the Test series, scoring 319 runs at an average of 106.33, including twin tons in the first Test.
It’s surprising that it was the narrow ODI series loss that prompted Mushfiqur to resign the captaincy, because that isn’t the format where Bangladesh’s biggest problems lie. In its last two ODI series, it had drawn 1-1 away to Sri Lanka and beaten West I
