There are some stats that will make your head spin. Like the one you’re going to see below.
Heading into the clash against Sri Lanka in Dallas on June 7 (Friday), Bangladesh had bowled a total of 682.3 overs in T20 World Cup history. Yet, astonishingly, only 1.17% of these overs (8 out of 682.3) had been bowled by leg-spinners.
Yes, eight overs of leg-spin across 17 years and nine T20 World Cups, the last of which came back in 2016 from the arm of Sabbir Rahman.
Prior to the Sri Lanka clash, Alok Kapali had been the only other leg-spinner apart from part-timer Sabbir to have bowled in the T20WC for the Tigers.
After the performance of 21-year-old Rishad Hossain on his T20WC debut, though, Bangladesh might very well be wondering why they never even contemplated grooming, developing or picking a leggie all these years.
On June 7 (Friday), young Hossain became only the third ever leg-spinner to play for Bangladesh in a T20WC.
And in what was his first game on the biggest stage in the sport, the wrist-spinner produced a showing for the ages to not just rock Sri Lanka, but announce himself to the cricket world in style.
Hossain, who entered Friday’s clash with 15 wickets under his belt in 17 T20Is, spun a web around the Lankan batters to register his best ever T20I figures.
The young leggie had never previously taken more than two wickets in a T20I game, but, thrown into the deep end against bitter rivals Sri Lanka, the 21-year-old dazzled to pick three wickets and rock the Wanindu Hasaranga-led side.
On the night, Hossain had a somewhat quiet introduction to World Cup cricket. He was welcomed to the big stage with a boundary off the very first ball by an on-fire Pathum Nissanka, and then he got hit for mammoth six in his second over by the left-handed Charith Asalanka. After two overs, the leggie’s figures read 0/16; not too bad, but nothing special either.
After 13 overs, with Sri Lanka coasting at 100/3, it looked like Hossain would end the day not bowling another over. Particularly because spin had traveled the distance, with five overs of the tweakers costing Bangladesh 46 runs as compared to the pacers, who had conceded just 54 in nine overs while striking thrice.
But skipper Najmul Shanto decided to think out of the box and took a gamble on young Hossain, re-introducing the leggie into the attack for the 15th over, against two batters that were well set (Asalanka 19* off 20 and Dhananjaya de Silva 19* off 23).
As it turned out, Shanto’s call proved to be a masterstroke.
Brought back into the attack, Hossain went BANG BANG on his first two balls back to reduce the Lankans to 100/5.
The 21-year-old first got the better of Asalanka, winning the matchup battle against the leftie. He tossed one up and enticed Asalanka, who decided to take on the bigger boundary on the on-side. But unlike earlier in the innings, Asalanka mistimed his slog-sweep, and that resulted in his downfall. Shakib took the easiest of catches at deep square to hand Hossain his maiden T20WC wicket.
Remarkably, Hossain didn’t have to wait AT ALL to turn one into two. Off the very next ball, he had Hasaranga caught at slip with an absolute peach.
The ball in question drifted in sharply, pitched outside leg-stump and squared up Hasaranga, who got completely flummoxed by the turn.
We’ve not seen too many ‘dream deliveries’ from spinners in this tournament but this certainly was up there as one of the best we’ve seen all competition, if not the best.
The 21-year-old, who is no stranger to bowling at the death for Bangladesh, having bowled in the 16-20 phase on five separate occasions for the Tigers prior to today, was handed the 17th over by Shanto.
And the youngster repaid his captain’s faith in him by removing the second set batter, de Silva, while conceding just three runs. He finished with figures of 3/22 off his four overs, with his figures in his last two overs reading 2-0-6-3.
Hossain’s spell — in particular his double-strike — triggered a horror Lankan collapse. From 100/3 in 14 overs, Sri Lanka slipped to 124/9, adding just 24 off the final six while losing six wickets.
If you’ve not downloaded the Cricket.com app yet, you’re missing out — big time. Play Fantasy on Cricket.com NOW! Download the App here.