[betaar]

Zimfan,
first of thanks for the letter which seems to have stemmed from my thread where I accused Zim board playing dirty. The title may have been a little exaggerated but none the less some of the events were not a stretch. Whether they had any bearing on the outcome of the first test was not the topic of discussion in my thread; rather it was the unfair disadvantage those events put Bangladesh in, was. I will try to explain my self below in detail.

[quote]1) The BCB and Rahim have openly declared that they did not request a warm up match as they felt they had enough preparation in Sri Lanka.[/quote]

I was not aware of this so I will sincerely apologize for my ignorance. If this is true then that's a moronic decision from our part. Regardless of Zim sub-standard facility BD should have still opted for some practice matches knowing their frailty on bouncy pitches. It’s not like Bangladesh is a first world country, so this sort of stupid excuse about facility is not acceptable.
Even team like Australia suffered when they decided not to have practice games few years back and almost lost the first test in Fatullah. But since BD is no OZ they definitely needed whatever exposure they could get prior to this series.

2) Rubel’s no ball was correct, no part of his foot was behind the line, therefore no conspiracy against Bangladesh from the umpires.

Have not seen that incident but heard about it. If Rubel’s foot was not behind the line then it cannot be a legitimate ball. But I believe BCB criticized the inconsistency, in terms of checking the footings of the BD bowlers after taking wickets but not the Zim bowlers, in umpiring rather than the wrong decisions. Bad umpiring that we got from the Umps is just incompetency, not a conspiracy.

3) In regards to the schedule Zimbabwe are well within their rights to dictate the schedule, the reason for swapping it around was for the simple fact that Zimbabwe had just come off a test series against West Indies and wanted to continue in the longer format, this is the hosts right and has been used by many host county’s over the years.

Sure it is though it seems like a late adjustment made strictly to help Zim. And when bundled with other adjustments such as ground selection, which I will speak below, it does seem pretty desperate from ZC's part.

4) Zimbabwe are once again in their right to produce any pitch they want, when we tour Bangladesh we are hit with spinning tracks, this is not a surprise and no one complains about it, instead they understand that a key part of international cricket is adapting to overseas conditions.

Totally agree with you in regards to home boards right in producing whatever pitch they chose. What I question is the decision of not playing Bulawayo because of the flatness of the pitch and Zim failure in winning matches there. Even Firdose Moonda questioned it in her article though she did bring up the financial aspect but it’s a move that puts Zim in an advantageous position, wouldn’t you agree? There would not have been any question if Zim produced a spinning track in Bulawayo but opted to play on a ground they feel most comfortable in. Again nothing wrong with that and well within Zim right but does not make it fair though, does it?

Finally I would like to apologise for the standard of commentary yes it comes across as biased but please remember when we have no Bangladesh commentator in the box (for reasons I do not know) then the commentators will always talk about the team they know most about.

Again that's not a conspiracy.....that’s incompetency derived from exaggerated patriotism of the commentators.

Anyways, hopefully there's nothing personal about these comments from my part and other BC member so we can still have you as a participating member from Zimbabwe.

Finally something I need to say about some of the BC members. Some of you speak of BD winning and teaching Zim a lesson and not complain or whine about all the issues Bangladesh is facing. You folks speaks as if BD is OZ and is capable of thrashing Zim in their own turf at will.

Speaking with either OZ or Americanized arrogance may sound macho and make you and your post very attractive but the truth is we are all poor fans of a team called Bangladesh that need all the fairness, if not advantage, it can get to win matches even against team Zimbabwe, especially when on tour.