India v/s Bangladesh: Patience is key at one-off Test in Hyderabad

India captain Virat Kohli admitted recently that “being patient when there’s a partnership” as the biggest learning as a Test captain till date. In the third session on the third day of the ongoing one-off Test between India and Bangladesh here, the Indian bowlers did not get a wicket.

They played into the hands of the equally-patient Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim and his seventh-wicket partner, 19-year-old Mehedi Hasan. Rahim and Hasan showed that batting, particularly in Test cricket, is not all about attacking but also being patient with loose deliveries. There was a stage that Rahim did not score a run for 30 deliveries, moving from his individual score of 46 to 47 after 31 deliveries while on another occasion, he did not score a boundary for 65 deliveries.

Playing for time was the approach Bangladesh needed. And it has taken their first innings fight into the fourth day and a possible fifth day too.

For India, they still have a huge lead and two full days to force a result.

The young Hasan had all the reason to get carried away by the occasion and could have played a false shot and got out. But he did not throw away his wicket like the senior pro Shakib Al Hasan did.

How often have we heard batsmen say “that is how I play my cricket”, “I will not curb my attacking instincts”, etc. But such indifferent approach to batting have also cost the team dear. Had Shakib not played that shot against Ravichandran Ashwin on 82, he could still have been batting with his captain Rahim at Day 3 stumps. For, Rahim soldiered on and took the onus upon himself and neatly shepherded Hasan with him.

This was not the first time Shakib played such a hurried, irresponsible shot. He did it in the second innings of successive Tests in New Zealand and cost his team dear. And he has done it in the past as well. But that’s the way he plays.

“Well, sometimes you get successful, sometimes you don’t. That’s the balance,” Shakib said when asked about his loose shot. “If I get out for 10 runs, what would have happened? We would have lost five wickets for 140 rather five for 240,” was all he offered when countered that his reckless shot cost his team dear.

India’s batting coach Sanjay Bangar offered to explain the batsman’s mindset in such situations and that it was important to have patience in such moments.

“Always think team first, what the team requires. Credit to Shakib and Mushfiqur for the way they batted. They actually didn't allow our bowlers to put pressure on them. They hit boundaries,” Bangar said here on Saturday.

“From a batsman’s point of view, the reason why a lot of our batsmen are not satisfied with their own individual landmarks is because they put the requirement of the team ahead of their individual performances. If you are able to that, if you are able to think in that fashion, then individual performances don’t matter. That eventually boils down to the performances that are critical to the team's outcome,” Bangar added.

Perhaps, patience is what Shakib needs to inculcate in his game. His hurried manner of batting may have helped his team in limited-overs but has put his team in embarrassing situations in longer format. Especially, when he walks in to bat at No. 5 and provides a link between the top-order and the lower-order.

Bangar stressed more on being patience. From India’s perspective, he said: “Being patient on such surfaces also teaches you a lot. I remember a Test in Sri Lanka, we were 0-1 down, we were bowled out around 350 and not getting the breakthrough, but there was a session wherein we contributed 65 runs and got only 1 wicket. But that session was followed by a flurry of wickets. That teaches our bowlers to be patient in certain sessions and wait for batsmen make mistakes, build on consecutive maidens and making them score through areas you want them to score of. Those are certain things that we, as a bowling group, certainly learn when we play on surfaces like this.”

Perhaps, Shakib would do well to not only learn the art of being patient but also play more responsibly as a senior player.