Akeal Hosein’s Dhaka adventure: 4am arrival followed by Super Over heroics

Akeal Hosein reached his hotel room in Dhaka at 4:00am on Tuesday. The West Indies selectors summoned him for the second ODI, following two injuries in the squad.

Hosein joined the team in the bus to the Shere Bangla National Stadium around noon. By the end of the night, he was bowling the Super Over for West Indies, defending 10 runs.

Hosein had an unfavourable match-up with the left-handed Soumya Sarkar taking strike. He started off with a wide and then a no-ball. Bangladesh got four runs without facing a legal ball.

Hosein somehow managed to salvage the over from there, avoiding getting hit for a boundary, even though he did concede one more wide with four needed off the last ball. So he had to go again and this time he kept his lines and gave up just one run.

“I don’t think I have anything left in me again, buddy,” Hosein said after bringing West Indies back from the brink to level the series 1-1.

“Got to the hotel at 4:00am. But it’s part of the job, and once you commit to something and once you give your word, you better be ready to turn up and give 100%. No excuses, and I almost messed it up, but thankfully, you know, I took the team home in the end.”

Hosein is a world-class limited-overs performer, but this was his first ODI in two years. Granted he was playing on an absolute, raging turner in Dhaka, he was still under pressure bowling the Super Over.

Hosein managed to get the ball to turn into the left-hander’s body when Sarkar and Najmul Hossain Shanto were on strike. Against Saif Hassan, he bowled over the wicket, not allowing the right-hander to free his arms.

“It’s a tricky pitch,” he said. “It’s not one that is turning at a fair pace. The ball is jumping a bit, so for me, to the left-hander, it was definitely to make him hit square. He’s [Sarkar] quite a powerful guy, so I think that if he has arms, he can hit through the line easily.

“So, for me, it was just trying to spin the ball from as close as possible on a good length and force him to hit square, because that square boundary was quite big.”

Hosein had faced a similar situation, in the Hundred last year. He didn’t have to bowl the Super Over back then, but did bowl the final set that pushed the game into overtime.

“I have been in a situation like this,” Hosein said. “It was an Eliminator in the Hundred. And it started off quite similar. I bowled a no-ball. In the Hundred, a no-ball is two [runs]. And I had to defend nine [10] or something like that. And one ball [the no-ball] went for six, and then they needed two [three] off four [five] balls or something.

“I remember Chris Jordan coming up to me, and he said, ‘don’t worry, you got this.’ and I said to myself, ‘if he can believe that I have this, with two [three] runs to go, Liam Livingstone, world-class hitter on strike, with four [five] balls to go, if Chris Jordan can believe, why can’t I believe?'” (ESPNcricinfo)