Woolmer condones Sami's record

Pak paceman Mohammed Sami's dubious distinction of bowling the longest over in ODIs has evoked sympathy from coach Bob Woolmer.

Pakistan paceman Mohammed Sami's dubious distinction of bowling the longest over in one-day cricket has evoked sympathy from coach Bob Woolmer, who says bowlers occasionally suffer such nightmares.

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Sami delivered a one-day international record over of 17 balls that featured seven wides and four no-balls in the Asia Cup second-round match yesterday against Bangladesh, which Pakistan won by six wickets.

"Poor old Sami had a nightmare, and that happens. When it goes wrong, it can go really wrong," Woolmer said ahead of the Pakistan team's departure from Colombo early on Friday.

Woolmer said he had a close view of how things go wrong for bowlers during his playing days as an English county cricketer.

"I once saw pace bowler Graham McKenzie deliver a 26-ball over during a Sunday (one-day) league game," said Woolmer. "The poor chap had a rough day, he even bowled with one pace and still delivered no-balls."

Sami opened the Pakistan attack by dismissing Bangladesh opener Mohammad Ashraful lbw for a duck on the fifth ball of the innings, but was taken off the attack after needing 17 deliveries to complete a wayward second over.

Woolmer said the excessive amount of wides and no-balls delivered by the Pakistan bowlers needs to be rectified. But the coach condoned Sami's 17-ball over, saying the pace bowler had bowled a lot during the past six months.

"I think he's feeling tired, and he needs a break," said Woolmer.

"I've told him to get away from the game and go on a holiday," he said. "Sami shouldn't worry about it, we can sort it out later."

Woolmer, who took over as Pakistan's coach ahead of the Asia Cup, felt there was an urgent need to reduce the pace bowlers' workload by building a pool of speedsters for rotation.

"Potentially we have the world's best pace attack, but all the fast bowlers are overloaded," he said. "I want to get eight fast bowlers up and running so that we can swap them around in one-dayers like the Australians do."

Woolmer said it would take him some time to spot bowlers who could comprise the pool of eight pacers.

"There are millions of fast bowlers in Pakistan, it's an amazing situation as every kid wants to bowl quick," he said.