2024-04-14 01:28:24
Former pace bowling coach Alan Donald is very excited to see Mustafizur Rahman performing brilliantly in Chennai Super Kings jersey. Donald gets extra pleasure from seeing Mustafiz enjoying his time in stock bowling. During his stay in Bangladesh, he was added with Mustafiz on stock bowling and swing. He believes that his old disciple is in the best form on the IPL stage.
Mostafiz’s performance in the national team has not been that sharp in the last two years. The average performance has gone far behind. Mostafiz can improve as much as Taskin Ahmed, Shariful Islam, Hasan Mahmud and Ibadat Hossain. Rather, he was being underestimated in the pace brigade. Because of this, there are cases of losing places from the national team. The left-arm pacer has been dropped from the team after Chandika Hathurusinghe took charge after being the automatic choice for a long time. This happened because of performance.
But everyone is impressed with his brilliant performance in this year’s IPL. Fulfilling the needs of T20 in controlled bowling. Getting regular wickets. Not giving any chance to the batsmen in bowling variety. He has the best achievement among foreign cricketers with 9 wickets in 4 innings. Mostafiz is also ahead of everyone in impactful performance.
Mostafiz is in the best rhythm among Donald. So enjoying your time. Mota is not surprised by such a performance from him. In an interview to Cricbuzz, Donald said, ‘The bowling looks like Mustafiz has regained confidence in his stock delivery. Not only his pace but also the variety is doing well in bowling. Having the best time in terms of rhythm. Seems pretty controlled. Also want to add, looks pretty fresh and enjoying his cricket. The new ball is getting rhythm from the start. Can take the ball in and pull it out. What he is doing now has always been in demand. So I was asked during my stay in Bangladesh, what happened to him?’
Mustafiz’s bowling change has also caught Donald’s eye, ‘His confidence in stock bowling has gone down. Also, his natural swing was losing its edge for both right-handed and left-handed batsmen. Confidence comes only when the batsman is forced to play by swinging the ball. I tried to make him do that. His slower and off-speech balls were always difficult. But now all balls are working. Behind this, I can say that his speed is having an effect.
Talking about working with Mostafiz on pace and swing while working in Bangladesh, Donald added, ‘When Mostafiz bowls well, he has good pace and swings the ball late. Started to show some in the World Cup but lacked consistency. Sometimes it can happen. When it started happening in training me and Fizz started working on it more. We worked on putting extra control on the slower ball. We were doing exactly the way they are bowling now. He looks very confident in the Chennai Super Kings tent. Good to see him.’
“What bowlers like Fizz do in T20 cricket, they try to mix the ball 70-75 percent of the time. By doing this they lose the stock delivery. It takes some time. As I can tell about Broad. While diversifying, the ability to deliver stock in this format is often lost. That’s why when we worked, we always worked with stock delivery.’ – He added.
T20 World Cup ahead. Ideal time for Mostafiz to regain his place in the national team. Donald said to rely on stock delivery and speed not just slower to get good results in USA and West Indies.
“I think he can deliver off-pace with his eyes closed. That’s how he made himself. And his body and brain work that way every time. While working in Bangladesh I tried and toughened him not to practice swing delivery. And we were able to sort out his wrist and release issue while he was in New Zealand.’
‘His slower ball was coming off the side and took it from the front. There was a discussion about how far you can go by making this mistake. He should be reminded for the upcoming USA and West Indies World Cups that slowing down the pace won’t lead to much success there. Instead, he has to bowl with late movement by keeping the pace. Only if there is a cutter, a slower one in the thought…you know what I mean.’ – said Donald.