You're just going to have to accept that's a good performance from him I reckon. Excellent stamina to allow him to bowl 9 overs so close, and sporting a bloody terrific BQ for a death bowler. Bowling most of his overs directly after Younis, Chester on a greenie, and Ahsan he'll leak, but what I've found is that you've got to accept he won't stem the tide of runs in SODs, and 3–60 is actually a fine performance.
I'd even say what he did there was matchwinning. If you sell him I will (actually, for realz) make a commitment to buy him as Daly's replacement.
So in last night's SOD game he came on to bowl in the 25th over with the score at 88/4 on a 70/24/57 deck with 87 cloud cover. Bit of a road at this point, sure, but their asking rate was a run-a-ball. Two good batters that were in form, sure, but one was on 15 off 22 and the other - a Slow Starter - on 2 off 4. He went on to leak 32 runs in his 5 overs. At the other end we conceded 1/27, all by spin. The Slow Starting allrounder got out to a false attacking shot vs Younis, and was replaced by another decent in-form allrounder. Heshan dropped a hard chance behind the stumps off Chester the over after Sampath's fifth.
I think to some extent you can credit the pressure he built with his BQ, even if his numbers didn't reflect it, but he gave away runs with loose balls. A 3/10 slower ball went for four, a 6/10 ball on legstump got worked away, and then a 9/10 got Sweetly hit by the set in-form batter. It might have been worse if we did not have such defensive fields, but the flip side then is he was milked fairly easily for 1s and 2s.
His 2nd spell was better, but because he was bowling at the tail. They needed 65 in 60 with the set batter only having 9/10/11 for company. Sampath bowled a noball at the batter that got hit for 4, and the following ball was hit for 4 as well, but he ended the over with the wicket of the #9. He then got the #10 in his next over, and Ahsan cleaned up the #11 right after that. His second spell was 4-0-20-2. This did include several dot balls against the set batter too tbf, but if he was bowling against two set batters I doubt he'd have emerged with much credit.
He's not as good as a better-balanced 44 skill bowler. One of those players who's total skills flatters his actual performances. The low accuracy does hurt.
In today's Friendly he had a much better outing. 81/62/60 wicket with 70 cloud and we were bowling first and their top order got off to an incredible start. He came on with the score 131/1 in 24 overs, and then bowled 5 overs for just 10 and a wicket. Was a huge factor in us pulling them back to 220, which ultimately was too much because our batting imploded. But he did his job, 9-1-26-2 overall.
In both games I think Danial Ahsan was much more key tho. 2 cheap wickets last night and 4/16 this time. I think I've absolutely nailed his bowling role heh.