ANALYSIS
Follow UsAustralia ended a forgettable campaign for Bangladesh, chasing 307 with 32 balls to spare. By doing so, they have now won seven on the trott. Thus burying the demons that surrounded the team after two defeats to begin with. In the last two World Cups (2023 and 2019), Australia lost to the same two sides - India and South Africa - in the league stage.
A big positive for Australia was perhaps Steve Smith getting back among runs on his favourite ground in India. But it was Mitchell Marsh who crushed Bangladesh with his second ton of the competition. Two out of Australia’s top three individual scores in the World Cup have come in the space of five days.
Is Marsh immune to finger spin?
Mitchell Marsh doesn't believe in moving his feet. When on song, brute force, strong levers, and his reach are enough to Bisonball the opposition. Thus, he gives the impression of a batter who might struggle against the turning ball. Teams have applied this in practice in T20 cricket and have used spin to keep him quiet.
But ODIs provide Marsh the luxury of time. In his ODI career, the all-rounder has made runs against spin at a rate of 80.8 as compared to 110.6 against pace. But he has averaged 53.2 facing the tweakers versus 33.9 against pace. This number is even higher against both kinds of finger spin, 83.6, and an unbelievable 137 against off-spin.
Hence, when Bangladesh continued with spin in the powerplay for David Warner after Travis Head’s wicket, it provided immunity to Marsh. No one has been more severe to spin in the powerplay than Marsh in this World Cup without being dismissed even once in this phase.
This number is, however, based on a small sample of five innings. But Marsh’s immunity against spin holds in his entire ODI career. In 12 innings where spinners have bowled to him in the first ten overs, they have not dismissed him even once. All of these innings have been in India, Sri Lanka, and the West Indies, the countries where the turning ball does something after pitching.
Against Bangladesh, once Marsh got a headstart in the powerplay against Mahedi Hasan and Nasum Ahmed, scoring 20 off 15 while the field was in, he went on bulldozing all Bangladesh bowlers on one of the flatest wickets of the competition.
Overall, Marsh has a strike rate of 100 against off-spin in T20s and 84.4 in this competition. It was a wicket so flat that in ODIs where he has faced 10+ bowls of off-spin in a match, this was only the second instance of him scoring at more than a run-a-ball against them.
Australia missed their MVP
Australia’s two most economical bowlers of the World Cup have been Josh Hazlewood and Glenn Maxwell. One is a frontline operator, and the other not so much. Adam Zampa has overshadowed all Australian bowlers since the win over Sri Lanka. But there was a point in the tournament when Zampa’s figures read 1/123 in 18 overs as compared to 2/67 for Maxwell in the same number of overs after two matches. Even in the 380-odd game against New Zealand in Dharamshala, Maxwell was Australia’s most economical bowler.
Maxwell deserved a break after the greatest one-man show earlier this week. That meant Australia had to rely on others to do the fifth-bowler job. Mitchell Marsh, Marcus Stoinis, and Head went for 126 off 15 overs between them (8.4 runs per over). Marsh and Stoinis went for 93 off their nine. If we take out Hazlewood and Zampa from the calculation, Australia’s bowlers went at 7.4 in the rest of the 33 overs in this match.
Maxwell has also scored runs at a rate faster than everyone else in the competition. In fact, he has the highest strike rate in the history of World Cups. Due to his last-man “almost standing” efforts, he is also averaging 79.4 in this tournament. The most obvious MVP for a team, if there was one.
Towhid Hridoy gets runs
2023 was supposed to be Towhid Hridoy’s breakthrough year. He has scored more T20 runs than any other Bangladesh batter in this calendar year. He has done that while playing in two different T20 leagues and three T20I series at home. 20 Bangladesh batters have scored over 200 T20 runs this year. Hridoy has scored at a rate higher than all except the greatest cricketer to come from his country: Shakib Al Hasan (138.4 to Shakib’s 148.4).
Hridoy started his ODI career with a bang as well, averaging 48.3 after nine games in the first three series this year with one 50+ score in each. He scored those runs at a rate of 97.7, which is almost illegal in Bangladesh. In most of those matches, Hridoy batted at number five. Then came the Asia Cup, where he batted at three different positions from three to five, averaged 31.6, and the strike rate dropped to 68.7. Against New Zealand before the World Cup, he batted at four and five in two games and scored next to nothing.
In the World Cup, Bangladesh decided to go bonkers with their batting order. For number five, they tried five different batters. Hridoy started at seven, was dropped after five games, came back after two, batted at seven against Pakistan, at five against Sri Lanka and at four against Australia in Pune. In a 24-match career, he has been treated like a spare tire.
Given his talent, he was bound to come good at some point. Being a pace hitter, managing to score 35 off the 79 runs against Adam Zampa and Travis Head was the most impressive aspect of his knock.
Pune or nothing for Tanzid Hasan
Tanzid Hasan danced down the track to hit Mitchell Marsh behind him for what was this fourth boundary. Something similar to what he did to Shardul Thakur at the same venue 26 matches ago when he scored his only 50+ score of the tournament.
Tanzid has hit 22 boundaries in this World Cup. Half of those have come in the two games in Pune. All of his three sixes have been at this venue. Though none of them in Match 43 against Australia.
Among the regular openers - those with over five games - Tanzid has had an average better than only Max ODowd. If we exclude the two games in Pune, he has averaged 8.3 in seven matches. Extras would have averaged more than him. In none of those games, he survived for more than 17 balls.
Though Tanzid is still young at 22, Bangladesh trusted a player with a List-A average of a shade over 25 to come good at some point. The chances of that happening in a tournament of this intensity were bleak. After a forgettable World Cup with the bat, it begs the question whether they would have been better off giving Tamim Iqbal his preferred position. Or play someone else ahead of Tanzid, who contributed in multiple facets.
Bangladesh ended up winning only two games in this World Cup. This is one less than the number of games they have won in each of the last four World Cups. They also batted at a run rate better than the only non-Test-playing nation in the competition. On multiple fronts, the graph for Bangladesh has taken a somber turn.
