Mirpur’s unpredictability to test Hathurusingha’s skillset argument

Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathrusingha felt that the pitch in Mirpur for the second Test against New Zealand starting today is unpredictable but his side now have the different skillsets to match up with the conditions and opponents.

Mirpur wickets have often turned up with something different than the expectation of the team management but generally it has served slow wickets with help for spinners. But while turning tracks have not produced desired results against other subcontinental sides in the past, teams from outside the subcontinent did have trouble facing spin, especially on days four and five.

The wicket will be conditioned by Mirpur's past, the frequency of matches relating to the tiredness of the wicket and the opponents at hand, who are from outside the subcontinent and found going difficult in Sylhet in a 150-run loss. Given that bit of uncertainty regarding the Mirpur track, the combination from the past game could serve to balance the team in Mirpur as well.

"We selected the combination according to our strengths and the conditions in Sylhet. You sometimes can't read Mirpur until you play couple of sessions, even. There's so much traffic going on, in this pitch. I don't think any venue is used so much in world cricket. We can't predict what's going to happen. We will try to not change much, at the moment," Hathurusingha said at the pre-match press conference yesterday.

The head coach identified that they need to find combination with the kind of skillsets that would pay dividends in Mirpur against a side like New Zealand.

"You will have the combination depending on conditions and oppositions' limitations, tactically," he said, adding that the wickets for the recent Afghanistan and Ireland Tests were different from each other and also identified that because curator had time for preparing the fresh wickets for Afghanistan, they were able to play three pacers.

The wicket that will be used had very little grass ahead of the Dhaka Test and the team management may feel that combination used in the Sylhet Test could be the way forward. Thus Hathurunsingha hinted pace may not be the priority even as the conditions a day before were overcast.

"We decided to go with three fast bowlers [against Afghanistan] because of the conditions and opposition. The fact is that we have all these skillsets now. We can use the way we want," he said about having required skillsets both in pace and spin departments.

He also added that they were guarding against complacency when the team meeting took place on Monday.

"Strong and experienced leaders like Mushy [Mushfiqur Rahim] and Mominul [Haque] spoke very emotionally. They spoke in Bengali. I can see there's no tall poppies in the dressing room," Hathurusingha said.

New Zealand are a bit on the backfoot after the first game and combination and the conditions were also in focus in Tim Southee's press conference. Southee pointed out pretty directly what sort of wicket they expected.

"I think you come to this part of the world, spinners are expected to play a big role. And we saw that in the first Test match and we're expecting similar in the second Test match," Southee said.

Above all, however, if Mirpur does serve something different again, Tigers will be keen to see how much their skillset versatility works at home given that home advantage has often been hard to procure in their Test history.