Historical Article

Going will be tough for minnows Bangladesh

Omar Kureishi

Bangladesh cricket has come a long way since I took a private team to Dhaka in 1985. Kamal Z. Islam was then the president of the Bangladesh cricket board and I have yet to meet a man who loved the game of cricket more than he did.

He invested his time and his own money to support the game and it was on his insistence that I rounded up a team that included Imran Khan and many Test cricketers and we went to Dhaka.

Kamal Islam has nothing more to do with Bangladesh cricket having been 'ousted' in the shuffle that is characteristic of the subcontinent, though he still is an ardent cricket fan. The visit of my team to Bangladesh is a distant memory and most people have forgotten about it and barring Kamal Islam, no one in Bangladesh cricket has even bothered to thank me.

But I was delighted when Bangladesh cricket was given Test status. They will find the going tough and they must not set their sights too high nor should the cricket public in that country to raise their expectations sky-high.

Bangladesh will be playing its first Test match against Pakistan at Multan as a part of the Asian Test Championship. It is a big occasion for them even though, realistically, Bangladesh must know that it is the outsider in this tournament, now reduced to three teams with the pull-out of India, a pull-out that is nakedly political...

[Copyright Dawn, 29 August, 2001]