Former captains Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain said England's spinners had been shown up by Mehedi Hasan after the teenager bowled Bangladesh to their first Test match win.
The 19-year-old off-spinner took six for 77 – his third six-wicket return in four innings – as Bangladesh beat England by 108 runs in Dhaka on Sunday to square the two-match campaign at 1-1.
When Hasan ended the match by having last man Steven Finn lbw for a duck it meant England, 100 without loss at tea on the third day, had collapsed to 164 all out.
"It says everything about the dearth of good slow bowlers in England that the four they have chosen in this two-Test series have all been comprehensively outbowled by a 19-year-old newcomer," said Hussain in his Daily Mail column.
“Mehedi Hasan had never played Test cricket before Chittagong (the first Test) but he took 19 wickets in the series and looked on a different level to England’s spinners, whether it was a 39-year-old in Gareth Batty or a debutant in Zafar Ansari.”
Hussain added: “It is a sad indictment of where we are and the England captain is left scratching his head in the field because he is getting neither control nor wicket-taking potential from his slow bowlers ... Young Hasan showed England how to do it.”
Atherton, writing in The Times, also used Hasan's form as a means of criticising the tourists' specialist slow bowlers.
“His excellence put the dismal efforts of England’s spinners, who only bowled eight maidens in the match, into focus,” said Atherton.
“He was particularly devastating against the left-handers who dominated the top order, 13 of his 19 wickets came from their ranks, albeit in conditions that were designed to exploit a traditional English weakness.”
*Agence France-Presse
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