It was almost 07 30AM in the morning of 8th September Melbourne standard time when Bangladesh got all out scoring 182 in their first innings responding to West Indies first innings score of 484/7 declared.
We passed yet another sleepless night for the cause of Bangladesh Cricket. Bangladesh can be asked to bat again and there is a strong possibility that the game may be over on the fourth day today drowning tooth less tigers to another humiliating innings defeat. The test is being played at the Arnos Vale Ground, Kingston St Vincent. Last night while the match was in progress we had interesting discussions on Face Book with Bangladeshi Cricket enthusiasts in different countries.
There were undoubtedly some bright sparks of the Bangladeshis. Left Arm Spinner Taijul Islam had a dream debut of picking 5 wickets on a not too responsive wicket. A pocket dynamo Mominul ploughed in the sand with a courageous half century though Bangladesh Head Coach reportedly was not convinced of his ability of playing fast and short bowling. Apart from these it was the same sad episode of shoddy performance of Bangladesh.
Fortunately Aminul Islam Bulbul the celebrated Bangladesh Cricketer of yester years wanted to meet us at Monash University Caulfield Campus where these days I am involved in preparing capacity development projects with Monash University Professor Dr Quamrul Alam. I was looking for this opportunity for a while as I have not seen Bulbul after 1990.Bulbul came with his wife after completing formalities of his sons admission in Monash Science school.
Dr Quamrul is one of my very special friends. Apart from his various works in planning and administering capacity development programs of Bangladeshis civil servants in Australia he is also teacher of many Bangladeshi national cricketers like Farukh Ahmed , Atahar Ali Khan and Nehal Hasnain .Public Administration Department of Dhaka University used to have a very strong team when Quamrul was teaching in that department . So our informed discussion about Bangladesh Cricket past present and future was very interesting. Bulbul incidentally played cricket in Ringwood Club the team of my suburb where I am also member now. We talked about Bulbuls present works as ICC development officer. We were amazed to learn from Bulbul how he encouraged Chinese, Singaporeans and couple of other associate member countries of Asia to take up cricket seriously. I will write separate write ups on those another day.
We discussed about the present situation of Bangladesh Cricket. This writer had firsthand deep involved idea of Bangladesh Cricket at its infancy and the early days of international cricket. I know Quamrul is also a cricket enthusiast. His son used to play grade cricket in Victoria and every Bangladeshi cricket enthusiast knows about Bulbul’s cricket knowledge.
We three agreed that Bangladesh team now badly needs parental guidance of very passionate group knowledgeable cricket personalities. The present group of cricketers has not gone through such a prolonged low state as was the case with early days of Bangladesh team in international arena. Fortunately that team had some great characters and most of the players had good education, love of cricket and the cricket enthics. Team management was committed. A cricket community of players, team management, coaching stuff worked as a team to ride the team over rough waters. Bangladesh team grew from strength to strength for commitment and dedication of a lot of persons. Unfortunately cricket is not served by that group of personalities though the facilities and opportunities have increased manifold now.
We know there are at least 5 ex Cricket captains in or around cricket administration. We are not very sure how much control they have over the novice way of cricket management. We are not sure whether present national team is properly nursed or administered now. We are also not sure whether BCB has any monitoring of evaluation in process? Whether BCB is accountable to any one?
The team is not performing in any format of the game for too long a time after reaching its peak in 2012-2013. Bangladesh is languishing now at the rock bottom of the ICC ranking in all format of the game. The present dismal performance will further widen difference with West Indies and we are not sure that this team can even match Zimbabwe from what we have seen from their encouraging performance against Australia and South Africa. Is anyone realizing that Bangladesh may have to qualify playing against ICC Associates for playing ICC World Cup 2019 if we cannot start winning soon? The way Bangladesh is playing we may be humiliated by Afghanistan, Ireland and may be Nepal if we are not serious.
Coming back to the test in progress all we can say that Bangladesh must not panic and bat sensibly. There is no genuine reason why Bangladesh batting should crumble like cookies on a wicket where West Indians could score 484/7? Gayle, Bravo and ChandraPaul can score against any attack anywhere. But when young Braithwaite can play a marathon patient innings of 212 it is crime the way Tamim, Kayes, Mahamudullah, Nasir have gifted their wickets to West Indian bowlers .The resistance came from quality player Mominul and Shamsur. I do not think Mushfiqur did justice to his responsibility batting at lower down at number 6 .He just scored a century in warm up match while most others had ordinary outing till now. Why Captain cannot lead by example? I will not bring his atrocious decision of letting West Indies bat on a docile wicket with two debutant spinner and not too penetrative pacers. We have a feeling that Mushfique acts on remote control now and that remote control is in the hand of novice mentors.
A repeat of first innings batting will really be unfortunate. We are not sure whether West Indies will enforce follow on or let tigers bite the dust for a while. But with the possibility of weather interfering Bangladesh may have to bat again from early morning .The target should be and must be scoring at least 303 and salvage something from the test.
BDST: 1754 HRS, SEP 08, 2014
