Cricket World Cup: Pakan can’t drop Shadab Khan but he has to step up | Cricket-world-cup News

Hyderabad: In two World Cup games so far Pakan’s leg-spinner Shadab Khan has struggled to create breakthroughs and contain runs in the middle overs. All bowlers were taken apart the Sri Lankan batsmen, however, vice captain Shadab Khan’s performances have been an issue of concern for Pakan in the middle overs for a while now.
There is a pattern. Case in sample: his fourth over and the innings’s 21st. The first four were leg breaks full on a length that were manoeuvred around, but suddenly, he drew his length back and offered a short one off the next, giving away a boundary and ruining the over. It wasn’t a surprise that his eight overs went for 55 runs. This game has not been just one one-off case with Shadab where he has tried to slip seven variations in six balls, but a recurring problem.
In the recent Asia Cup, Pakan faced the same opposition in the Super Four stage of the tournament. In the first innings, Sri Lankan spinners Maheesh Theekshana and Dunith Wellalage made full use of the spinners-friendly conditions to restrict Pakan to 252 in a rain-curtailed game.
However, Shadab was inconsent when his chance came. Though he ended up bowling his full quota and also picked a wicket, he was expected to do more as the prime spinner in such conditions. A slower pace on that turning track seemed to be the way to go but he kept varying his lengths and pace in a predetermined manner, offering many a loose ball and Sri Lanka took toll to win the game.

This year, from 12 games, the Pakan vice-captain has picked up 14 wickets at an average of 39.50.
Ahead of their opening game against the Netherlands, Shadab did acknowledge that his form was poor: “My form hasn’t been good recently. A player gets mentally down due to unsatisfactory performance. However, a break has given me a chance to recover and I look forward to performing well in the WorldCup.” But he is yet to walk the talk.
Some Pakan commentators during the Asia Cup were of the opinion that Shadab’s not playing red-ball cricket in domestic cricket or international cricket has affected his ability to bowl long spells. He played his last red-ball game in 2020 against England in Manchester.
In the T20 World Cup last year in Australia, he got the job done in the middle overs bowling tightly and picking wickets. However, bowling four overs in a shorter game where the batters are constantly looking for boundaries is quite different from bowling a 10-over spell where the intention of batters is to rotate strike-through middle overs and capitalise on looseners.
“In a longer format or longer game (50-overs), you need bowlers who can beat the batters with turns and can bowl at a parabola trajectory and that’s how you get wickets,” the former Indian leg-spinner Vaman Kumar tells The Indian Express. The frustrating part of Shadab is that he has the skill to bowl those teasing lengths but often errs in slipping short-length delivery as a variation.Most Read
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Balance that Shadab brings
“If you look at his package of bowling, batting and fielding he is exceptional,” Mickey Arthur would come to the rescue of the legspinner before the tournament. Dropping Shadab would durb the side’s balance as three of their fast bowlers Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, and Hasan Ali (in the absence of Naseem Shah) are undroppable and also cannot bat. Hence it becomes important that they have someone like Shadab coming down the order to contribute. His partnership with Mohammed Nawaz against the Netherlands was the turning point in the Pakan batting innings which helped them to post a decent score and win the game.
Though they do have the option of Usama Mir up their ranks who has done well in the Pakan Super League and is a similar profile player to Shadab – who can bat down the order and can bowl his quota of overs, he lacks the experience at the international level. In his eight ODI’s he hasn’t quite set the world on fire, picking 11 wickets at an average of 35.09 and averaging just 8 with the bat.
Pakan have been carrying mystery spinner Abrar Ahmed in reserves, who has had a good start to his Test career and is used to bowling longer spells but bringing in him would significantly lighten their batting. Hence, Pakan need Shadab to find a way out for himself and for them.