West Indies became the first team to bowl a full 50 overs only with spinners in their ODI against Bangladesh at Mirpur on Tuesday. The quintet of Akeal Hosein, Roston Chase, Khary Pierre, Gudakesh Motie and Alick Athaneze each bowled 10 overs, with Athaneze emerging as the most economical bowler with figures of 2/14 and Motie the most expensive bowler with 3/65 in his 10 overs.
All five spinners combined to take seven Bangladesh wickets and restrict the hosts to 213 in their 50 overs. The West Indies bowlers sent down the overs in three hours and 18 minutes.
The Shai Hope-led side went past the previous record held by Sri Lanka, who bowled 44 overs (264 balls) of spin in an ODI against the West Indies at Port of Spain in Trinidad in 1996. The visitors had gone on to win that match by 35 runs with Muttiah Muralidaran and Kumar Dharmasena taking two wickets apiece and Upul Chandana, Sanath Jayasuriya and Hashan Tillakaratne taking one wicket each. Chaminda Vaas was the only seamer used that day, taking figures of 1/19 in his six overs.
Bangladesh had won the toss and elected to bat first, and on an unusual-looking surface, no batter managed to reach a score of 50 or more. Soumya Sarkar top-scored for the hosts, with an 89-ball 45 that had three fours and a six.
Home team captain Mehidy Hasan Miraz made an unbeaten 32 off 58 balls as his batters could not entirely cope with the conditions on offer and the high diet of spin from the West Indies. Number 11 Rishad Hossain’s unbeaten 39 off 14 balls propelled Bangladesh to the eventual score.
The visitors had the option of using Justin Greaves at some stage of the innings but chose not to, sending down a full innings of spin in Mirpur.
The maximum overs of spin that India have bowled in an ODI is 41.2 overs (248 balls), which came against the West Indies in Indore in 2011. In that game, R Ashwin, who opened the bowling, Ravindra Jadeja and Rahul Sharma sent down 10 overs each while Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma bowled 6.2 overs and five overs, respectively.
