Do not point to wrong reasons

[sharifk]

If you think temperament, impatience, lack of skills, absence of selfishness, etc. are the reasons our team is performing poorly, think again.

Firstly, after abusive comments from some of our members a few weeks ago, I had thought of staying away from BC because I had felt some were either too young to understand or didn’t have the vision to understand the big picture. But after BD’s repeating poor performance, I have decided to come back and read some comments. I know we are all upset about the performance, but looking at the wrong reasons won’t help. If you understand continual improvement principals, you will agree that almost anything and everything is possible if there are appropriate vision, mission, goals and objectives, and thoughtful strategic planning is performed to reach in those goals. Those should be the responsibilities of the BCB. And just hiring a few good coaches alone won’t help. Improvements can only be achieved by planning. Even coaches need to carry out their duties based on those goals and objectives. However, without any inside information about whether or how appropriately or not those activities are carried out by the BCB, I can only discuss about the tactical planning aspects of a series or a tournament.

Since the tactical planning should be in line with the strategic or long term goals, we have to guess about our strategic plan. I am hoping it includes making our team a winning team. I am hoping it since any sport is about winning or losing, and nobody should want to lose. If the long term goal is to win, the short term goal has to be trying to win. So trying to win should be part of the tactical planning. If we are to try to win, we must understand the minimum requirements of winning. A winning team should consist of a team with skilled players who are willing to win and have the confidence to win. In summary:

Technically sound + motivated to win + confidence = winner

We know our new generation players are technically more sound than the older generation players. Yet we have a few technically not so sound senior players in the team instead of the skilled younger ones.

A player can be motivated intrinsically and/or extrinsically. We need to select players who are not only technically sound but also would like to win. To assist players who would like to win, we need to target winning. Our team management did exactly the opposite prior to the series by stating our team won’t target winning in the Test. It killed the desires of the few intrinsically motivated to win type of players in the team. Let’s just think that you would like to win so much, but you are playing for a team, whose management tells you that you are not there to win. It won’t work. This is why, we must always go for a win. If you don’t succeed, it can’t be worse than losing, or can it? You may argue the “draw” factor of a Test match. It should never be the initial intention, but can be tried on the 4th or 5th day of the game if winning is not possible anymore. Having said that, I am no way implying that we were/are in a position to win against Sri Lanka in the first Test nor am I saying that by targeting to win against big teams we will start winning immediately, but the players whose intrinsic desire is to win shouldn't be discouraged from trying it. By not trying to win, we are asking to alter some players' desire to win and the result is we know what.

For boosting our players’ confidence, each selected players should be allowed to play with his natural style of play. If the players are young and have the technical skills, they should be encouraged to learn from their mistakes. The team should not consist of all players with patient. Patience is overrated. Have you seen how aggressively DPMD Jayawardene played against Shahadat even after 2 quick wickets? Being aggressive may not always win you games, but you won’t lose always either. To win, you have to know when to play aggressively and when to play defensively. This is why a team needs to be balanced with both patient and aggressive players. And each type of players should be allowed to play their own styles. That’s where the captain also comes in to decide who to play at what situation. Trying to alter the natural playing style of the players kills the confidence and the results of no confidence in sport is devastating. And that’s what’s happening to our team.

I also believe our team management was wrong when they had targeted individual accomplishments. This practice is bad in a team environment. We might have not seen the impact of it yet, but if we will have a closely contested game, it may impact the ultimate outcome since selfishness can harm the team objectives.

[One World]

I remember two fav lines from Rabi Thakur

"Dekha hoy nai chokkhu melia Ghor hoite bahire dui pa felia
Ekti dhaner shisher upor ekti shishir bindu"

[sharifk]

I remember two fav lines from Rabi Thakur

"Dekha hoy nai chokkhu melia Ghor hoite bahire dui pa felia
Ekti dhaner shisher upor ekti shishir bindu"

And what is this shishir bindu symbolizes for here?

[PoorFan]

Nice read Sharifk, I agree most of your points. I said it before and saying it now again, the team selection for this tour was the first mistake.

[sharifk]

Nice read Sharifk, I agree most of your points. I said it before and saying it now again, the team selection for this tour was the first mistake.

Thanks PoorFan. Setting up negative tone prior to the matches is just as bad. Ofcourse selecting wrong team sets up the negative intention even prior to spelling it out.

[Tigers_eye]

Excellent piece Sharifk. But to have the best Kaizen one must have trained employee. If the training is not up to the par the employees (Cricketers) would perform below par. This training for the longer version of the game is done in Domestic cricket. Which can be a step in the long term goals.

Technically sound + motivated to win + confidence = winner
in your formula I must add another variation of "experience". Experience of the higher standard in international cricket.

Our cricketers are not technically sound in the first place. (Best players like Habibul, Ash, SN, even Sakib, Mushfiq, Zunaid) are not as technically sound as the international standard demands. Not enough years under their belt for the young ones.

The formula can be modified a little more when we talk about test cricket. The longer version requires 20 wickets to win the game. So no matter how much technically sound, motivated and confidence these boys are if they don't have bowlers who can get 20 wickets they won't win.

And I must disagree with your analogy of patience. Without patience no team will succeed in the international scene. Also, in real world. Nothing good comes out of hurry.

[Electrequiem]

We can change the team for the 2nd test if we wanted to, right? Can we ONLY pick from the previously announced Test Squad, or can we bring in ODI players as well?

[Tigers_eye]

We can change the team for the 2nd test if we wanted to, right? Can we ONLY pick from the previously announced Test Squad, or can we bring in ODI players as well?
We can only pick from the previously announced Test Squad. We can't bring in ODI Players.

By the way, here we are discussing about continuous improvement. (Quality management, six sigma type of thing)

[sharifk]

Excellent piece Sharifk. But to have the best Kaizen one must have trained employee. If the training is not up to the par the employees (Cricketers) would perform below par. This training for the longer version of the game is done in Domestic cricket. Which can be a step in the long term goals.

Technically sound + motivated to win + confidence = winner
in your formula I must add another variation of "experience". Experience of the higher standard in international cricket.

Our cricketers are not technically sound in the first place. (Best players like Habibul, Ash, SN, even Sakib, Mushfiq, Zunaid) are not as technically sound as the international standard demands. Not enough years under their belt for the young ones.

The formula can be modified a little more when we talk about test cricket. The longer version requires 20 wickets to win the game. So no matter how much technically sound, motivated and confidence these boys are if they don't have bowlers who can get 20 wickets they won't win.

And I must disagree with your analogy of patience. Without patience no team will succeed in the international scene. Also, in real world. Nothing good comes out of hurry.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Tigers_eye. My feeling is that for a Kaizen event, the employer we are referring to here probably needs much training before the employees.

Your point about experience is a valid one. I had thought about it too prior to my posting, but I wanted to focus on the minimum criteria given how long BD has been playing the Test cricket. Also if you add the “experience” variable, you would still put the skills, willing to win and confidence up in the hierarchy above “experience.” By that I mean, we should go with skilled players over the experienced ones who are inferior to the inexperienced as far as the technical skills. May be it’s a gamble, but what do we have to lose since we are losing anyway.

[sharifk]

By the way, here we are discussing about continuous improvement. (Quality management, six sigma type of thing)

Or continual improvement for that matter. To me continual is more appropriate. But continuous improvement or continual improvement or whether using six sigma or something else we should always look for the right reasons for the problem, and identify the root cause(s) of the problems instead of fixing just the symptoms of the problems.

[Rifat]

excellent post sharifk,

Habibul Bashar said before playing India in test that "india could win 2-0" and they won
1-0 thanks to rain...

this "negativity" has been instilled in the minds of our players ages ago, how could we forget it and blame the selectors and the poor fans???

[One World]

As most members are liking this thread I would not delve into find out all the dew points thats have been heavily posted here and there - this is a good summary of all the issues to be concerned with.

[sharifk]

As most members are liking this thread I would not delve into find out all the dew points thats have been heavily posted here and there - this is a good summary of all the issues to be concerned with.

I thought (at least from what I have read in many threads including a front page article) most of the people here were saying that we didn't have enough skilled players or our players lacked selfishness, etc. Many of them I found wrong reasons to address for tactical purpose or simply not true. Therfore I don't know how this thread can be considered a summary of those "dew points." I have tried to perform a quick root cause analysis type of thing for the tactical problem we have. BTW perhaps we need to perform a root cause analysis for our strategic problems, but we were just discussing about one or two series, so I thought it would be inappropriate.

[sharifk]

excellent post sharifk,


Thanks a lot. But I sure did miss this part:


this "negativity" has been instilled in the minds of our players ages ago, how could we forget it and blame the selectors and the poor fans???

Selectors are still to be blamed when they select players with the negative mentality. I don't think the young players have the negative mentality, but when we mix them with too many players of loser mentality, we let them know of the intention of losing. This way we lose even before the game starts, and the ones that have winning desire alter their natural style of play to cope with the loser mentality. Everyone fails this way.

[sharifk]

I am bringing it up because a lot of people need to read this after today's performance...

[sharifk]

There is no question that we have better talents than a few years back. Yet our teams performed much better earlier. Why? Because when we had not so talented players, their defensive style worked because that was their natural style. Now that we have skilled players, the same style won't work because the new generation players' natural style of play is different, and we are asking them to alter. This is why it's not working along with wrong team selection. In the ODI it's been working because our players are playing their natural games. So pleaase don't be emotional and point to wrong reasons and blame our players...

[Dhakablues]

There is no question that we have better talents than a few years back. Yet our teams performed much better earlier. Why? Because when we had not so talented players, their defensive style worked because that was their natural style. Now that we have skilled players, the same style won't work because the new generation players' natural style of play is different, and we are asking them to alter. This is why it's not working along with wrong team selection. In the ODI it's been working because our players are playing their natural games. So pleaase don't be emotional and point to wrong reasons and blame our players...

I agree..
One thing that beats me is, why is it that we are only blaming the players not thinking that maybe the Sri Lankans were just way too good for this Bangladesh A team? Offcourse, the hyper-selectors were doing too much of "selection" than letting the team gel ( they obviously dont know the 4 stages of team formation) with continuous changes after changes. The BCB is also in a turmoil with the government changes and all that. We have a distrusing assistant coach. The players are playing their 2nd Test series after 13 months break. Moreover, its not Zimbabwe we are playing against... its Sri Lanka. The only flaw the Sri Lankan team had was their fielding ( thank God for that, otherwise..) From Malinga/Fernando/Murli and their batters,, all are in contrasting form than Bangladesh team. If you watched the game last night,,who do you think threw away their wickets? Ashraful/Mushfiq/Rafiq/ are the 3 culprits but the rest were bowled out with good balls. So yes, there is a grave issue with the team selection and I dont think anyone is in charge now to take note of that,,( as they are all are told that they will be fired by Tapan Chy.). But blaming the players is not the solution... these players are playing within their limit. And unfortunately, thats their limit. Accept it.

[sharifk]

I agree..
One thing that beats me is, why is it that we are only blaming the players not thinking that maybe the Sri Lankans were just way too good for this Bangladesh A team? Offcourse, the hyper-selectors were doing too much of "selection" than letting the team gel ( they obviously dont know the 4 stages of team formation) with continuous changes after changes. The BCB is also in a turmoil with the government changes and all that. We have a distrusing assistant coach. The players are playing their 2nd Test series after 13 months break. Moreover, its not Zimbabwe we are playing against... its Sri Lanka. The only flaw the Sri Lankan team had was their fielding ( thank God for that, otherwise..) From Malinga/Fernando/Murli and their batters,, all are in contrasting form than Bangladesh team. If you watched the game last night,,who do you think threw away their wickets? Ashraful/Mushfiq/Rafiq/ are the 3 culprits but the rest were bowled out with good balls. So yes, there is a grave issue with the team selection and I dont think anyone is in charge now to take note of that,,( as they are all are told that they will be fired by Tapan Chy.). But blaming the players is not the solution... these players are playing within their limit. And unfortunately, thats their limit. Accept it.

Yes, Srilanka is a great team, and even SA lost by an inning and over 200 runs last time they visited, but I still believe we could have done better with better planning. As I am constantly saying that when 1, 2 or 3 fail it's the failing players' fault, but when everyone fails it's the system's fault, so don't blame the players. I think along with wrong team selection and changing natural games we are causing most of the problems. Today we surely have better players than those of yesterday's, but we aren't using them properly with our wrong targets and planning.

[Sohel]

Thoughtful post sharifk, thanks again. Some of our members demonstrate qualities they despise in our cricketers. Please don't let them get to you. Fair weather adulation is a common trait amongst the petit-bourgeoisie, let 'em stew in their own weakness.