Sunday, 12 Jan, 2025

Sports

Anatomy of Disaster 

Saleque Sufi | banglanews24.com
Update: 2021-04-02 11:14:18
Anatomy of Disaster 

Bangladesh Cricket Team in the New Zealand Tour embraced humiliating and comprehensive white wash in ODI and T20 series. It was well anticipated that underprepared Bangladesh team without Shakib and Mashrafee would loose and may even embrace white wash in both format. But Scores of 131 and 154 in the 1st and 3rd ODI , getting all out for 76 in T20 turned T10 match are not acceptable. After staying 24 years in ODI circuit and 21 years in tests such humiliation can not be accepted . It is sad and unfortunate that Bangladesh can not express themselves in bouncy and pacey wickets, can not play leg spin, can not take catches, can not field well. Moreover, it is not acceptable that NRBs carries anti Bangladesh Government placards and chants anti government slogans during and after the match.
BCB pays handsome salaries to foreign coaching staff. What Bangladesh gained from it? Is there anyone in BCB who can objectively evaluate the performance of coaching staff ? 

Postmortem Of Failures:
The downward decline of Bangladesh cricket started from the middle of ICC 2019 World Cup. There was a huge fleet of BCB officials in UK enjoying the World Cup under BCB hospitality. If we look back in retrospect Bangladesh had reasonable possibility of playing in the semifinal. But after midway Bangladesh losing matches against India, Pakistan got knocked out. After the World Cup BCB terminated contract with head coaches and most of the coaching staff . But the reason for the failures was not evaluated. Bangladesh team led by Tamim suffered white wash in ODI series in Sri Lanka . Still no post mortem done. Bangladesh team led by Shakib Al Hasan digested whitewash in T20 series against Afghanistan in India. BCB remained unconcerned. Following that Bangladesh was humiliated in Pakistan and India tour. BCB digested. Bangladesh lost test against Afghanistan at Chottogram inside 3 days. Even that could not embrace BCB. Even in the recent past Bangladesh got whitewashed in 2 matches test series against a second string West Indies team. The disaster against New Zealand in ODI and T20 series cannot be viewed in isolation. It is a continued process. It did not happen overnight. Bangladesh cricket is on the decline over the last three years. 

What Happened Wrong?
We are aware that five exceptional quality players Mashrafee, Shakib, Mushfique, Tamim and Mahmudullah individually or collectively made major contributions for success of Bangladesh over the past decade. The successes were mostly in ODI and very few in tests. With this five sometimes Sabbir, Nasir, Imrul Kayes, Mustafiz , Soumya , Liton , Mehedi Miraj made contributions.  But BCB never planned and executed succession plan. As such with the decline of form of 5 top players and their absence from the team for various reasons the performance of the team form flat. BCB did not care to keep track of off the field activities of national players . As such the career of few potential players who could fill in the void at the eventual exit of five top players became uncertain for their undisciplined living. Even in such situation Under 19 team won World cup and Women’s team Asia Cup. But such successes could not be made sustainable . Development squad , Bangladesh A team could not produce any quality player as of now to step into the shoes of Mashrafee , Tamim , Mushfique and Mahmudullah. Mashrafee is already out of action. Perhaps Tamim, Mahmudullah would follow in 2 years. Mushfique and Shakib may be there for another five years. But we have seen yesterday for the first time what disaster is in the offing.

We Need Professional BCB.
For maintaining and managing professional cricket in highly competitive international cricket Bangladesh need fully professional and accountable BCB. It is not essential that bCB executives have to be past national cricketers. In cricket operation and planning we need executives having proven excellence in development, short, medium and long term planning. The selectors have to past national cricketers of prudence. BCCI President Sourav Ganguly is more concerned about cricket development of India than dealing with day to day cricket operation. CA Chief Executive never bothers with team selection. BCB must have transparency and accountability.  Otherwise cricket would not come out of the deep hole where it is heading. 

Bangladesh must taking lessons how cricket in Australia , New Zealand, England and India are being run. BPL follows IPL almost blindly . But we never realize how IPL made India among top three in all formats of international cricket . But BPL could not even make Bangladesh a competitive team in T20. 

Hope an authentic post mortem of diabolic and abysmal performance of Bangladesh team in New Zealand tour by neutral committee would  be made by Bangladesh Government and follow actions taken in the greater interest of Cricket in Bangladesh. 

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