[imahmud]

　
"No Pain, No Gain"

Ganesh, the The Lord of Success, as the mascot of the World cup cricket 2011, Indians have their blessing written officially on the stone. In addition of possessing a great batting lineup, they also have a great spinner support. They have all the bells and whistles. This is it! But can we beat India? Indians will say "No way, Jose", no chance. Wasn't it what we have heard in 2007 before WC?

Cricket is all about runs. There is no chicken and egg about it. Bowlers could play a significant role and contribute but at the end of the day, it is run that decide the game. Indians have the strongest batting line up where each of the batsman is proven to be a match winner with basket full of credentials. Their individual statistics could surpass our entire team stats. Then, is it about David vs. Goliath? As we will be dancing with the mascot promoting their blessing but can we beat them?

In 2007, we assembled a team with young men, virtually unknown in the cricket world, facing Indians who are legendary in their own right and were publicly blessed by the bollywood stars that our young men could not have even dreamed of. But we beat them comprehensively. Since then, years have been passed and now we have another WC cricket soon coming up. We can not just build our dream from past success. It’s an old story. We need to think about strategy, the winning strategy where the rubber meets the road.

Since last WC, a lot of water passed under the Buriganga Bridge. Our team became from most inconsistent team to a rising power with some noticeable successes. But that's not the whole story. Since WC2007, world watched cricketers like Ash and Aftab who could destroy any team in their day. But eid used to come once in a blue moon and we were consistently inconsistent. Something needed to be changed. Our front order batsmen failed often, putting pressure on our middle order. Our middle order super heroes could not find their day (eid) way too often (too much pressure on Ash to change his role and now he is paying for it and root cause of his inconsistancy) that the pressure passed down to our lower order who started resisting not by choice but by necessities and unfortunately that wasn't not enough to win matches consistently. So, strategy needed to be changed and new breeds of middle order batsmen were introduced. They are our colossal collapse resistor. By slowing down the collapse and not giving away cheap wickets, they became our heros. We started becoming more consistent. If the top order batsmen fail (often the case), they hold the anchor and steady the pace (not with runs but by not loosing wickets) and then our lower order batsman get the luxury to score. This is a strategy/model still in use. That's why Shakib comes to bat at number 6 and Tamim has the luxury to play his game. That’s why our team consist of a bunch of all-rounders and as a matter of fact, we have the worlds number one All-rounder. It did not just happened by luck, we had to evolve that way for our own survival.

With this strategy, although it gave us time to develope, balance the weight and pace of our top and lower order and, as we began learning how to win but at the same time, it brought us some undesirable burdens. Even our top order batsmen started to have success, this middle order remained the same and started slowing down the pace. As our top and lower order learned to pace their innings and started performing, now our middle order became the bottle neck. Especially, when we loose quick top wickets, our middle order is painfully and annoyingly slow scoring runs and put tremendous pressure on the lower order batsmen. This strategy/model is good for winning ODI series which we often observed but not good enough for winning World Cup matches.

It (strategy) got so bad that our performing batsmen like Junaid often was forced to take that role under many instances and in the process he started loosing his natural strokes. Our Ash is a victim of it. For example, our last match against Zimbabwe, where batsmen were struggling to score (slow outfield) and our top order were struggling in one point. Pressure was tilted towards Tamim as Junaid was only holding the wicket but not scoring runs, it seemed like it'll be a nail biting finish. But Tamim stepped on the paddle and rest was history. To have winning strategy, we have to take risks. We need players like Tamim or Shakib who can get wheel moving under any circumastance. We can not rely on players who struggle to score when they are under pressure. We need some fire powers. We need to think about batsmen who are suitable for 4th and 5th batting positions in WC, who are capable of scoring under pressure, who are match winners.

Last WC'07, we had Ashraful, Aftab, and Rafiq who were able to sizzle under any circumstances. When they were in the crease, wheel always turned. We still have batsmen like Ashraful, Nafees, Kapali who are capable of scoring and are in good form and will be ideal for these positions. If our team JUST want to perform well in WC, no changes are needed BUT if we want to dream to go all the way, we have to take chances and without taking risk, we wont be succeeded. We have to raise the hope. As Einstein said "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."

This is the time to gamble to keep up the hope. I highly recommed that we atleast, if not both 4th and 5thposition, but atleast replace one of this order with a batsmen who can score under any circumastaces, a match winner. Give them the license to kill, our 007s. After all no pain, no gain.