Akeal Hosein could be forgiven for wanting a quiet day. Instead, the left-arm spinner landed in Dhaka in the small hours, slept for a couple of hours, then found himself defending ten runs in a Super Over. West Indies won, the series is level at 1-1, and Hosein has another travel story for the scrapbook.
The call-up arrived late on Monday after two injuries left the tourists short of spin. Hosein caught the first available flight, reached the team hotel at roughly 4:00am, and was back on a bus to the Shere Bangla National Stadium before noon. “I don’t think I have anything left in me again, buddy,” he said afterwards, wide grin, sweat still drying. “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.”
The match itself was already tight. Bangladesh needed ten from the Super Over. Soumya Sarkar, a left-hander who likes anything in his arc, took strike. Hosein started nervously: first ball a wide, second a no-ball. Four runs on the board before a legal delivery. Yet he regrouped, slowed his pace, and found enough drift to keep Sarkar and Najmul Hossain Shanto hitting square rather than straight. A second wide crept in, but crucially no boundary. Off the final legal ball Bangladesh still needed four, missed, and gathered only a single from the rebowl.
“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.”
This was Hosein’s first ODI appearance for more than two years. Domestic tournaments and franchise gigs kept his skills sharp, yet international white-ball cricket still brings a different sort of glare. Remarkably, his previous brush with late-game chaos also included a front-foot fault.
“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?’”
His confidence last night owed plenty to recent touch. Hosein has become a go-to spinner in global leagues: rhythmical approach, minimal fuss, ball often dipping late. Analysis of his final-over method, shared by West Indies assistant coach Floyd Reifer, centred on hitting the seam and changing release height—cricket-speak, perhaps, but essentially a plan to remove pace off the pitch and deny freedom of swing.
Bangladesh might wonder about their batting order. Rishad Hossain, who pleased a lively crowd with 39 not out from 14 balls earlier, stayed in the dug-out during the Super Over. Hosein admitted it surprised him. “Yes, I was a bit surprised. I mean, the guy that seemed to do the most destru…”
Even so, the hosts cannot pin defeat solely on that choice. They had lost early wickets to Alzarri Joseph’s pace and recovered only through lower-order improvisation. Spin, as expected in Dhaka, was king; the surface gripped, puffed, and made fluent stroke-play feel like work.
West Indies will take the momentum into the decider. Hosein, presumably, will take a proper night’s sleep. Whether he wakes up to bowl another Super Over is anyone’s guess, but for now his 36-hour dash has become the story of the series.
