No need to get in a spin over Yasir Shah’s decline – just lighten his workload

The truth is that Yasir Shah has not bowled especially well for Pakistan in this series against West Indies in the UAE, or at least not as well as might be expected of him, given his career to date, writes Osman Samiuddin.

A physio gives treatment to Pakistani cricketer Yasir Shah during the second day of the third and final Test between Pakistan and the West Indies at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on October 31, 2016. Aamir Qureshi / AFPShow less

It is an indication of the immensity of what he has achieved that the bowlers he joins (and the one he almost equalled) are all early 20th century pioneers. Cricket was a different sport then, but it also threw up a different set of statistics, sometimes starkly so for bowlers. To match those figures is as impressive a feat as time travel itself?

Jarring or not, the truth is that Yasir Shah has not bowled especially well for Pakistan in this series against West Indies in the UAE, or at least not as well as might be expected of him, given his career to date. Think back even to each of the wickets he has taken and ask yourself how many of them have been the result of genuinely good deliveries, the kind we expect from a leg-spinner?

Roston Chase in the second innings in Abu Dhabi – drawn forward, lured in further by the drift and then beaten on the outside by the break away – was one. Perhaps Jermaine Blackwood later in the innings was another.

See more on the third Test between Pakistan and West Indies:

• Day 4: Jason Holder's 5-30 put West Indies within touching distance

• Day 3: Pakistan can find no way past 'West Indies Wall'

• Day 2: Kraigg Brathwaite pushes for century against Pakistan

• Day 1: West Indies finally get some wind in their sails

But a lot of his wickets, you have to conclude, were eminently avoidable. Batsmen will tell you almost all wickets are avoidable, but really, it is difficult to imagine a more settled batting line giving Yasir as many wickets.

Predominantly, the problem is of the lengths he has bowled, and specifically that he has not hit good lengths consistently enough. Leg-spinners are the least repetitively inclined of cricket’s bowlers: that is, if all bowlers aspire to land, two, three or more balls in the same spot, it is the most difficult for leggies to do.

But even with that caveat, Yasir’s variances have been troublesome. According to figures provided by CricViz, in his first series against Australia two years ago, Yasir landed 93 per cent of his deliveries on a good length in Dubai and 74 per cent in Abu Dhabi. In the Dubai Test against England a year later, he landed it on a good length 73 per cent of the time. His numbers in this series were 29 per cent in Dubai and under 50 per cent in Abu Dhabi.

Those are stark differences and even without numbers, it has been easy to see. Mostly he has erred pitching fuller than this region, though there have probably been a few more dragged down the pitch than might be expected.

This is what had marked him out when he arrived on the international scene, his control, especially over his lengths. The lack of it was evident even in England, in those two barren middle Tests, where he could not land it often enough in the areas that mattered.

Part of it could be that he is overworked. In the two-year period since his debut, he has bowled more overs than anyone else – the only bowler, in fact, with over a 1,000 overs under his belt in that span.

He has looked it at times through this series, that electric burst through the crease that slightly dulled for having happened so often.

That has meant that he has got less spin than usual. Yasir was never a huge turner of the ball, but neither was he the kind of straightish leg-spinner he is being made out to be now. He could – and did – spin it often and occasionally big enough in his first season and a half.

The pitches have a role – this time round, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah have been far more resistant to his wiles or indeed those of any bowler. And in Dubai, he had an unfamiliar ball to work with, in unfamiliar conditions.

It has amounted to a strange narrowing of the potential impact that could once be confidently forecast for him. By no means is it fatal and the flip side is that if he can take this many wickets bowling not as well as he can, life and the future cannot be so gloomy.

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