http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20161030/...ng-mystery
West Indies cricket continues to treat the specialist spinner with scant regard.
Yesterday’s bewildering utiliÂsation of Devendra Bishoo on the opening day of the final Test against Pakistan in Sharjah was typical. True, the leg-spinner made the final session of the day his own with four wickets, complementing the increasingly impressive fast bowler Shannon Gabriel to leave the hosts uncomfortably placed at 255 for eight at stumps.
Up to the tea interval, though, with Pakistan reasonably poised at 148 for three and opening batsman Sami Aslam well entrenched alongside captain Misbah ul Haq, Bishoo had only been allowed four of the 54 overs bowled. As has become the norm since his debut against India in Antigua last July, Roston Chase’s still developing off-spin was first out of the blocks before lunch. And based on what has transpired over the past 12 months, it was half expected that Kraigg Brathwaite’s part-time stuff would get a tryout before the frontline slow bowler.
Yet there was Bishoo at the end of the day, dominating proceedings to the extent that it delayed the taking of the second new ball, and with Gabriel removing the dangerous wicketkeeper-batsman Sarfraz Ahmed to added to the dismissals of Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq in the first over of the match, West Indies were able to reflect on their best day in the field on what has so far been a wretched campaign in the Arabian desert.
But this sort of treatment has been nothing new for the incumbent or any of the other previous wearers of the “specialist spinner†tag going back four decades. Almost without exception, it’s as if they are only useful to give the faster bowlers a rest and block up an end with no real expectation of success. If for some unexplained reason a wicket or two fall, well then they are the toast of the town... at least until the next innings when the indifferent attitude returns.
West Indies cricket continues to treat the specialist spinner with scant regard.
Yesterday’s bewildering utiliÂsation of Devendra Bishoo on the opening day of the final Test against Pakistan in Sharjah was typical. True, the leg-spinner made the final session of the day his own with four wickets, complementing the increasingly impressive fast bowler Shannon Gabriel to leave the hosts uncomfortably placed at 255 for eight at stumps.
Up to the tea interval, though, with Pakistan reasonably poised at 148 for three and opening batsman Sami Aslam well entrenched alongside captain Misbah ul Haq, Bishoo had only been allowed four of the 54 overs bowled. As has become the norm since his debut against India in Antigua last July, Roston Chase’s still developing off-spin was first out of the blocks before lunch. And based on what has transpired over the past 12 months, it was half expected that Kraigg Brathwaite’s part-time stuff would get a tryout before the frontline slow bowler.
Yet there was Bishoo at the end of the day, dominating proceedings to the extent that it delayed the taking of the second new ball, and with Gabriel removing the dangerous wicketkeeper-batsman Sarfraz Ahmed to added to the dismissals of Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq in the first over of the match, West Indies were able to reflect on their best day in the field on what has so far been a wretched campaign in the Arabian desert.
But this sort of treatment has been nothing new for the incumbent or any of the other previous wearers of the “specialist spinner†tag going back four decades. Almost without exception, it’s as if they are only useful to give the faster bowlers a rest and block up an end with no real expectation of success. If for some unexplained reason a wicket or two fall, well then they are the toast of the town... at least until the next innings when the indifferent attitude returns.
