Shane Bond – One of the most dangerous bowlers with the start of the 2000 era and the second best bowler from the country like New Zealand after Sir Richard Hadlee. Pace along with his swing Shane Bond was completely unplayable even on his ordinary days. But on his day even the golden Australian team of Ricky Ponting was in the shambles – such was the aura and impact of bowlers like Shane Bond. If injuries were not the part of his career Shane Bond could've been the most complete bowler of his era in terms of impact and the wicket taking abilities against the quality teams.
There were the fast bowlers in the past but very few genuine fast bowlers like Shane Bond who had redefined the art of fast bowling with his rare bowling skills. If we can say Shane Bond is a coaching manual of fast bowling it would not be wrong in any sense. A torch-bearer of New Zealand (under dog team) but what makes Shane Bond different from the others in the league of his time. In an era which were dominated by the bowlers like Brett Lee, Glenn McGrath, Wasim Akram and Courtney Walsh. Shane Bond's ability to bring the ball in towards the right-handers at the sharp angle along with a lethal bouncer to players like Brian Lara makes him a complete unplayable bowler of this time.
Shane Bond had started playing first-class cricket in 1997 at the age of 21 while played 12 matches for Canterbury and left the cricket ground to become the cop for New Zealand police in the year 1999. Without having much time to play cricket in between Shane Bond never played cricket until 2001 while returning to cricket in the same year to represent Canterbury. In the 60 first-class matches, Bond had taken 225 wickets at an average of 24.34 which included 12 five-wickets haul and 1 ten-wickets haul. With these numbers it was nothing much expected from Shane Bond when he made a debut for New Zealand in a test match against Australia in 2001. But what's next was the phenomenon called Shane Bond when played for New Zealand cricket. Having said, let us take a look at three bowling spells of Shane Bond.
Shane Bond 6/23 vs Australia, 2003, World Cup:
Scoreboard –
Australia – 208/9 (50 Overs)
New Zealand – 112/10 (30.1 Overs)
10 overs 2 maidens 23 runs 6 wickets – it was Shane Bond match but the batting team of New Zealand had ruined the performance of his best bowler. the 5th game of the Super Six Stage Australia team has won the previous game to Sri Lanka by 96 runs while New Zealand has won against Zimbabwe by 6 wickets. One team was definitely going to the semi-final round after the match as New Zealand decided to bowl first after winning the toss and Australia was reduced to 47/4 against the supreme fast bowling of Shane Bond.
The situation somehow got better for Australians when they were at 80/4 before Shane Bond put them into the shambles one more time in the span of 4 runs Australia has lost another three wickets to make scoreboard look like 84/7. But Michael Bevan (56) and Andy Bichel (64) fought back to help Australia to post 208 runs for the loss of 9 wickets in the 50 overs.
In response, New Zealand batsmen were completely miserable against the pace-attack of Brett Lee (5) and Glenn McGrath (3) who shared 8 wickets to restrict New Zealand at the lowest score of 112 runs and lost the match by 96 runs. Although New Zealand lost the next game too against India to fail to qualify for semi-finals also.
Shane Bond 6/19 vs India, 2005:
Scoreboard –
New Zealand – 215/8 (50 Overs)
India – 164/10 (37.2 Overs)
It was the triangular tournament between India, New Zealand and Zimbabwe. All the teams played 4 games before the final of the triangular tournament. New Zealand has won the previous game to Zimbabwe by the big margin and up against India (who was playing the first game) to repeat the story. New Zealand won the toss and decided to bat first and looked in trouble at the score 36/5 but thanks to the lower order Brendon McCullum (49), Craig McMillan (54) and Jacob Oram (36) who fought back to take the scoreboard to 215 runs in the 50 overs.
India needs 216 to register the first win of the tournament and with the likes of Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni it was clear on the very easy note team India will have this game but they forgot Shane Bond was there to made the possible which was impossible. Indian innings started and they looked miserable against Shane Bond from the first ball. Shane Bond ended the match with 9 overs 3 overs 19 overs 6 wickets – team India was out of the game in the first spell of Shane Bond.
Indian lower order fought back and a partnership was formed before Shane Bond returned to remove the wicket of Irfan Pathan. With this wicket India had lost the match by 51 runs and Shane Bond was awarded with Man of Match for his spell of 6 for 19.
Shane Bond 5/23 vs Australia, 2007:
Scoreboard –
Australia – 148/10 (49.3 Overs)
New Zealand – 149/0 (27 Overs)
It was a 3-match series just before the World Cup 2007 between Australia and New Zealand. Australia was playing without best players but still they were remarkable in the series with the kind of performance but came out as the losing team after the first ODI game. While the first ODI game was day and night game with New Zealand winning the toss and decided to bowl first with Shane Bond strikes again to remove five Australian batsmen to restrict them to 149 runs before their 50 overs.
In reply New Zealand chased down the total in 27 overs without losing any wicket to take 1-0 lead in the series. Shane Bond was awarded with Man of Match for his spell of 5 for 23. Although it was low scoring but in the next two games Australian team put up a fight with scoring 330 plus on two occasions and still came out as the losing team as white washed with 3-0 in the series.
Must Read | Shane Bond - A lost talent
