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Old March 8, 2010, 12:10 PM
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Raynman Raynman is offline
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Join Date: February 27, 2008
Location: Georgia, USA
Favorite Player: Richard Hadlee, Shakib
Posts: 2,182

Overall, 2010 to date to date is a failure for me. Until we get back to back significant wins and start doing so at more than once a year rate, I can’t acknowledge that we are progressing at a rate that we are capable of.

In Tests, the fighting spirit against SL (1st test in 2008) and the series win vs. WI (albeit a second hand squad), BD should have pushed IND and NZ further in their tests. After defending their honor to Shewag’s ‘ordinary’ comments in the 1st innings of the test, the rest of the year was just a backward step as a team. There were individual successes but very few as a team. The only notable success was Shakib and Mahmadullah’s partnership to avoid follow-on and the potential of what might have been had the caught behind been challenged. Although a victory against ENG will be seen as a great upset, it will be against a bowling attack that is missing Anderson, Sidebottom and possibly Broad & Onions. The batting attack is also Strauss. Even if the English batsmen defeat us, any collapse by the BD batting line up will have to be considered an embarrassment.

In ODI, following the NZ ODI home series to the tri series win and near win vs. SL, BD was expected to show new teeth as favorites over WI and ZIM. They did but there were still some hiccups which at that time I guess got covered under the win to be raised or addressed as concerns. Still struggling for win #1 this year especially with an under strength ENG at home has to be concerning. Sure, the umpiring decisions played a role but ENG had some bad calls there way as well and at the end of the day all that will hit the books is the Win or Loss. Putting the umpiring aside, we SHOULD have comfortably won 2-1 given the ENG team composition and fair expectations that could have been placed on our shoulders after our 2009 record especially at home.

In T20, its obvious that the think tanks don’t care. The board, the selectors, the Coach, the captain (both Ash & Shakib). There was no matches scheduled to prepare for the WC even though the rest of the world was prepping through the IPL. An embarrassing loss to IRE cost Ash his captaincy but changed little else. This year again there is only one match leading up to the WC which was an atrocious failure. Even an embarrassed WI team wiped the floor with us when the opportunity arose in this format.
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