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Old July 21, 2004, 02:08 PM
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BushidoTiger BushidoTiger is offline
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Join Date: May 23, 2004
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 629
Default Hate to sound like a cynic

But I'm yet to realize this 'progress' thing that DW and the whole BD cricket management (including the captain) are talking about.

Yes, DW has to defend publicly about this supposed progress, but I really hope that this kind of 'lets-give-everything-a-pos.-spin' speak doesn't take the batsmen into some sort of self delusional state, where they think they are not that bad.

Barring first test against WI, I'm yet to see this so called improvement. DW keeps talking about their lack of exp and mental toughness (lack thereof) etc, as convenient excuses for consistent dismal performances.

What do you call when a supposedly 'world class' WK, reliable veteran, who just got a century against WI, took off for a run after ball went straight to the fielder causing the most crucial player of the game to be ran out??

Where's the maturity in that?

What makes a batsman poke at a ball that was swinging wildly off stump and give practice catches to the fielders?

What kind of a leader gets caught with a delivery as if a deer caught in headlights, without any answer?

I agree with previous post which said we weren’t necessarily expecting a win rather hoping to see a good fight.

Along with the fans like myself, the BD cricket team are in self delusional state...when we do good, we start to shower the players with out-of-the world adjectives (read world-class bowler), out-of-whack rewards inconsistent with performance etc. (yes I do believe in pos. re-enforcement with balanced work/reward ratio).

The cricketers probably started to believe that they are better than what the stats might suggest. As a result they don't really try to undo their mistakes.

There is absolutely NO excuse for repeating the same mistakes over and over. I really get tired of hearing that 'lack of infrastructure', experience etc.

Again, no one's expecting them to win everything, but for God's sake when you enter the field, show up to play once. Show the heart, the Bengalee pride once. Go down. Get beaten, Fine…but go down fighting..!!

I don't think that is too much to ask. That is the ONLY thing most fans want at this point. Show some pride.

Just look at Hong Kong for example, a team mostly consists of expats, lost both to BD & Pak..but nobody can blame them for lacking heart or pride.
For some reason, this BD team collectively reminds me of a school kid in his early teen. This kid was doing badly in his math tests. In every exam, he'd consistently not make even 33% required to pass. The parents, the uncle who also doubled as a private tutor knew this kid had what is takes to understand math. At home, he seemed to understand the 'complicated' complex interest rate, the 'ratio' problems of the dishonest milkman mixing water with milk to increase profit etc.
Yet end of each terminal exam, the kid had to be coerced, threatened-for-life to have him show his graded exams to the parents.
The kid, on the other hand, despite all the yelling, desperate pedagogy around him would sink into a world of his own.
Everything said, would just enter in one 'kaan' and get out thru the other.

It wasn't till another private tutor assured the kid that his math score didn't matter and was able to have him open up and confess that he dreaded sitting in math tests and too eager to ‘finish’ the test.
“'I only want to finish as quickly as possible before everyone else”, informed the kid of his math tests experience.
Realizing that the kid had his focus/intention sat in the wrong place, the tutor told him that he didn't even have to attempt all ten questions, let alone finishing them during the exam.
“You just have to pick one that you feel comfortable and take all the time you want to finish that and do that one right and go on to the next one only time permitted”, assured the new tutor.
Unbeknownst to the kid, the tutor asked the class teacher not to accept his exam paper before the last bell rung.

The kid took that simple advice to heart, next time around he was able to concentrate only one thing at a time, forced to stay in his seat and really read and understand the problems.
Needless to say the result was a dramatic turnaround. He actually started to believe that he could do math and thanks to his improved results he started to enjoy math.

That forced focus/concentration would pay kudos for this kid for years to come. For this lack of math-phobia would help him managed to survive (albeit barely) extremely math-centric engineering education. Though never was a math whiz, even in his utter defeat, he never ran away from the math monster.

Although BD team hears all the clutters around them, I don't think any of it is being registered in the right lobes in their brains.
Once in the crease, they're going back to their old comfort zone and letting old habits run them.

This team, in my opinion, unfortunately, lacks the maturity to overcome these bad habits on their own recognition.
They have been given a lot of time to rectify their nagging mistakes.
It’s about time the honeymoon should be over and they ought to be subjected to some sort of tough regimental routines/directives.

Each batsman should be allocated a 'quota' of over/time/runs that they must survive/score based on their batting orders. If they fail, consequences should be exemplary and be served as deterrent.

Truly, it is sad that at this stage of our test playing status, we have to think of enforcing regiments suited for misbehaving juveniles.

Sometimes, I suppose it is necessary to 'beat pride into someone' for them to recognize what pride is.

Till then we remain painfully optimistic
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