Tamim’s dot ball conundrum

Bangladesh Men’s National Team’s One-Day Internationals skipper Tamim Iqbal has a fine record leading the side since his appointment in 2020 but his batting record in the last 12 months has left a lot to desire as the World Cup this year is coming closer with every passing day.

However, his batting form has been one to wonder about, especially his tendency to play too many dot balls, which has often forced the team backwards.

Tamim has the lowest strike rate this year among recognised Bangladesh batters who have played at least five innings. He has a strike rate of 75.83, considerably lower than the second-lowest of Mehidy Hasan Miraz, who has a strike rate of 82.25. Towhid Hridoy tops the list with a strike rate of 111.16, while Mushfiqur Rahim’s strike rate is also over run-a-ball.

The bigger concern, though, is not his strike rate, but rather his playing too many dot balls. A look into his latest ODI knock, 69 runs off 82 balls against Ireland, tells the tale of the problem Tamim has been struggling with.

Out of the 82 deliveries he played, 39 were non-scoring, meaning 38 were dot balls, more than 46%. Najmul Hossain Shanto, in his brilliant century in the previous ODI, had 31 dot balls playing 93 balls, 33.33%. Towhid Hridoy, who scored 68 off 58 balls, played 20 dot balls, 34.48%. In the first ODI, Mushfiqur Rahim played 70 balls to reach 61 runs in a difficult situation, yet had a dot ball percentage of 42.85.

In comparison to other big innings in the series, Tamim’s dot ball percentage is higher, which hurt the team in that match as other batters were forced to up the ante at the other end and find a source of runs, and eventually saw themselves get out.

Tamim’s dot ball or strike rate issues are not just limited to this match.

In the first two ODIs, Tamim played 19 and 13 balls respectively. Among them, he had 13 dot balls in the first match, and eight in the second.

Since the start of 2022, Tamim has had a strike rate of 78.27, meaning the only recognised batter who has a lower strike rate than him is Mahmudullah Riyad, who has a strike rate of 68.91 and has been dropped from the side.

In Tamim’s 21 innings in this time period, he has gone past 30 with a strike rate beyond 80 only five times. In four of those innings, Bangladesh were chasing a target below 200, and in the one that was batting first, 50 off 45 balls against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh lost.

In his other significant innings, dot balls play a huge role.

In the second ODI against England earlier this year, Tamim scored 35 off 65 balls. Among those 65, he played 42 dot balls, almost 64.6%. While the match was being played on a difficult pitch, which could help Tamim’s cause, Shakib Al Hasan scoring 58 with a strike rate of 84.05, does not.

However, the innings that signifies Tamim’s problem is his 62-run knock against Zimbabwe, which he took 88 balls to score. In that innings, he played 58 dot balls, almost 66% of the total balls he played. In that innings, he started well, batting on 34 after 38 balls. However, in the next 50 balls, he scored only 28, and he took a staggering 41 balls to go from 35 to fifty.

In that Bangladesh innings, Tamim’s strike rate of 70.45 was the lowest by a distance, with all of Anamul Haque, Mushfiq, and Mahmudullah scoring with a triple-figure strike rate, while Liton Das had a strike rate of 91.

While Bangladesh are trying to move into a new era of a proactive approach, their captain’s dot ball problem is hurting their cause, leading to them not getting good starts, and an even bigger problem for Tamim is that despite playing all those deliveries to get in, he has failed to convert one into triple figures in the last one-and-a-half years.

“The captain’s performance is very important for the team’s confidence. Hopefully, he will play even better,” Bangladesh national team chief selector Minhajul Abedin said recently.

Tamim also hoped that his first fifty in 10 innings, which came in the third ODI against Ireland, would help him return to form.

Bangladesh would hope that form arrives without the bundles of dot balls and with a better strike rate.