Quote:
Originally posted by Sham
But while we are talking about resilience, shall we also give credit to another player who stood up for Bangladesh when all others around him failed? Of course that player is none other than Alok Kapali! Few examples:
Lets start with the 45 against Australia at Colombo out of a score of 129. Next highest score in the match: 27.
How about the 34 against Australia at Cairns out of a total of 147? Needless to say it was the highest score again.
The 49 against Australia at Darwin out of a total of 142? The next highest score in the match was again 27!
Not impressed by his efforts against the world's best team?
How about his 71 out of our 168 against South Africa in Dhaka? The next highest score was 24!
Or the 89 not out out of a total of 190 against West Indies? Next highest score was 42!
Even his 32 against SL in the World Cup match out of the team's total of 124 was the highest score!
lets not leave out Kapali from our list of resilient BD batsmen. I don't think any other BD batsman has played as many fighting knocks against quality opposition as Kapali has (except perhaps Khaled Mashud)!
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And that is exactly why Alok Kapali should be in the team. We as fans easily look at failures of our
young batsman and very easlily forget what they have given to us in the past. May be I am giving Kapali unnessecary support but considering what has been happening to him, he needs the support. To me he is a number 7 in both forms of the game and someone who if works a bit in his bowling can be the
fifth bowler for the team. I used to think and still think that he has the
potential of being a genuine allrounder, however many people here think he is a batsman who can bowl. Even in that case he can easily be a fifth bowler and in both forms of the game. When experts are asked about what is the role of a fifth bowler in modern one day cricket, they would in short say that he is someone who would not be weakling in the bowling if not the strenght. In my opinion if my main four bowlers are going at 4/4.5 an over then my fifth bowler would do a good job if he goes for 5 an over (not 5.5/6). and in test if my fifth bowler has an average of 35 then he would do a good a job ( that is if my strike bowlers average around 25). he does not need to be my strike bowler but can add flexibitly. To prove my point lets go back to the second test vs Srillanka last year. A greenish wicket in Colombo's overcast sky. Ideal bowling combination would have been 3 pacers and 1 spinner. Agreed Bangladesh didn't have a great third seamer. But after having ur opposition 4 down before 50 and ur two seamers tired, it would have been ideal if there was a third seamer. However Bangladesh didn't have one and had to turn to Aftab for his bowling. the reason because in place of a third seamer there was a spinner playing. Agreed Bangladesh needed two spinners because they are used for a) taking wicket and b)
damage control. However that test match did't have a pitch which deserved two genuine spinners. Had there been a third seamer Bangladesh could have kept the Srilanka under pressure and may have resricted them to a lower score. Having said that, u need to cosider Bangladeshi selecters mentality who probably was thinking "what if our seamers arnt sucessfull, what if the pitch loses its greenish tinj". In such a case the best situtaion would be either I have a an allrounder who could bowl seam/spin. With Alok Kapali Bangladesh could have had a spinner who may not have picked me a 5fer but would at least would keep the presure up by not giving runs. That would allow me to play a third seamer also. Also the fact that he plays well under pressure, one should remember that in each innings Bangladesh played they were in trouble had he been batting at 6/7 (in place of Tushar),
may be things may ot have been as bad. This is just an example of what can happen but there is no doubt that luck is not with him.
Suffering from a bad patch, u come and play a good knock and looks to be coming to some sort of shape and form u get injured and hence not play the next game. Isn't that bad luck.