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Former South Africa pacer and Bangladesh's fast-bowling coach Allan Donald has lauded Sridharan Sriram and Shrinivas Chandrasekaran for helping their pace-bowling spearhead Mustafizur Rahman get his groove back and play a huge role in the hosts' ODI series win over Rohit Sharma-led India.
Sriram and Shrinivas are currently appointed as Bangladesh's T20 coach and performance respectively. The Indian duo worked with Mustafizur and helped identify the chinks in his armour.
"Sriram and Shrinivas spotted that in the release point of his slower ball, his palm was facing the batter," Donald told ESPNCricinfo ahead of the second Test of the two-Test series.
"It needed to be more side-on so that the palm was facing the off side on his point of release. He bowled a lot of overs to get that ball to come out softer and with a bit more bite. He worked really hard on nailing yorkers.”
Mustafizur was spot on in the tense second ODI where a rampant Rohit was smashing the ball all around the park. India needed a six off the last ball but Mustafizur bowled one in the block hole. In reply, Rohit who had already hit five sixes could just dig it out down the ground. The left-arm pacer was able to keep Rohit at bay in the run chase defending 16 runs in the last over.
"He is a class act. When we needed a guy to step up against a world-class player in Rohit Sharma, Fizz came to the party and produced a great yorker to win the series for us. I love working with him. Mustafiz has been around the world. You write him off at your own peril. I know how hard he is working right now."
Bangladesh were beaten comprehensively in the first Test at Chattogram. In the end, the 513-run target turned out to be too much for Shakib Al Hasan-led side who are yet to beat India in the longest format of the game.
Bangladesh will step out to spoil India’s party who are currently seated second on World Test Championships (WTC) 2021-23 table.
