Ahmed_B
April 12, 2006, 02:00 PM
The game is not over yet... but, as it appears, will be over within just over a session of play tomorrow. But lots of praise and congratulations from my part to the brave tigers. All they lacked was the experience to kill the opposition after being in dominant position in longer version of the game.
For the first 2 days, tigers dominated the match... but it was only on the 3rd day while batting for 2nd time that they started to smell a possible victory. But they lacked the temperament to hold on to it. They lacked the experience to be able to change their own style of playing. The Aussies, as expected, showed great example of how to be stubborn.
When vastly Gilly turned around with all his determination, Bashar and the whole team lacked the experience to hold their nerves.
The Tigers probably had no clue as to what to do with a 150+ runs lead just on the 3rd day of the game. It was an astonishingly great situation after all... which BD had never been into. Not to mention the butterflies in their stomachs while they were smelling a possible upset already on the third day.
And again, I must mention that major share of current BD team’s batting consists of ‘strokeplayers’(S. Nafees, Ash, Aftab, Bashar, Rafiq, Mash.. all of them) rather than patient batsmen. I should say, among those, only Bashar & S. Nafees has shown the maturity to be able to adopt their game according to match situations. We need a few more like Rajin or Pilot in our Test squad specially.
And for the people who would like to blame it all on Bashar alone, I want to say that it’s rather unfair to compare his job with most other Test-playing nations. Because those captains actually enjoy the luxury of leading a bunch of hugely experienced cricketers who do half the thinking themselves. Just think about Gilly or Warne or Lee. No one had to tell them how to control the situations... it’s them who support their captain by coming up with astonishing fight-backs. And that they do from their own vastly experienced past.
A test match can change it’s colors and turn around in every sessions. The current BD squad just had some bitter experiences of losing faith and concentration when opposition is pushing hard. But at the end of the game... they will realize that there were several points where they have let it lose. That’s where experience counts. There is no such thing as first hand experience to learn where and how things can go wrong. And surely this has been a great 5 days of play for the Team where they saw so many colors of the match.
The Tiger’s have taken the game beyond everyone’s expectations and they did it in a 5 day match (not an ODI!)... they really deserve lots of praise for that despite some of the mistakes they made on the way.
I would say they made a very bold statement already in this tour and for the series coming ahead.
For the first 2 days, tigers dominated the match... but it was only on the 3rd day while batting for 2nd time that they started to smell a possible victory. But they lacked the temperament to hold on to it. They lacked the experience to be able to change their own style of playing. The Aussies, as expected, showed great example of how to be stubborn.
When vastly Gilly turned around with all his determination, Bashar and the whole team lacked the experience to hold their nerves.
The Tigers probably had no clue as to what to do with a 150+ runs lead just on the 3rd day of the game. It was an astonishingly great situation after all... which BD had never been into. Not to mention the butterflies in their stomachs while they were smelling a possible upset already on the third day.
And again, I must mention that major share of current BD team’s batting consists of ‘strokeplayers’(S. Nafees, Ash, Aftab, Bashar, Rafiq, Mash.. all of them) rather than patient batsmen. I should say, among those, only Bashar & S. Nafees has shown the maturity to be able to adopt their game according to match situations. We need a few more like Rajin or Pilot in our Test squad specially.
And for the people who would like to blame it all on Bashar alone, I want to say that it’s rather unfair to compare his job with most other Test-playing nations. Because those captains actually enjoy the luxury of leading a bunch of hugely experienced cricketers who do half the thinking themselves. Just think about Gilly or Warne or Lee. No one had to tell them how to control the situations... it’s them who support their captain by coming up with astonishing fight-backs. And that they do from their own vastly experienced past.
A test match can change it’s colors and turn around in every sessions. The current BD squad just had some bitter experiences of losing faith and concentration when opposition is pushing hard. But at the end of the game... they will realize that there were several points where they have let it lose. That’s where experience counts. There is no such thing as first hand experience to learn where and how things can go wrong. And surely this has been a great 5 days of play for the Team where they saw so many colors of the match.
The Tiger’s have taken the game beyond everyone’s expectations and they did it in a 5 day match (not an ODI!)... they really deserve lots of praise for that despite some of the mistakes they made on the way.
I would say they made a very bold statement already in this tour and for the series coming ahead.