No pain, no gain

[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.
　
　
　
　
　

[Zeeshan]

If you wrote it, it's pretty good bro. =)

[Purbasha T]

Good points. And that's the thing, we need to be a bit more adventurous when things are not going our way and not just put the guards down. Hopefully, we'll see the desired changes in the WC.

[lamisa]

is stumpee ganesh?

[lamisa]

this article explains our cricket cycle very clearly but with all due respect to the writer,please concentrate on writing in correct english next time...

[ahms]

Is training started and how well the training is going?

[Haru-party]

Originally Posted by lamisa
is stumpee ganesh?

yes

[imahmud]

BCB will be selecting the best 15 tomorrow. We have India, England and South Africa, 3 of the best cricket teams of the tournament in our group. The type of team the selectors about to be selecting will tell us about their expectation. If they are focusing on just playing well, selecting 15 or 11 will be a breeze. But if they are putting a team together which possibly could chase 300+ runs and possible could go to next round, they should add some major arsenals in the team by taking measured risks. This is not about building our one day team for future, this is freaking World Cup and it will be playing here!
If our focus is to only win against Ireland and rest to fans prayers, current team is more than sufficient. But against the rest, choices are limited unless our selector wants to play safe. WC cricket dose not happen in home ground very often and our players are already familiar with the fields and environment. This is our best chance.

[kalpurush]

Originally Posted by imahmud

BCB will be selecting the best 15 tomorrow. We have India, England and South Africa, 3 of the best cricket teams of the tournament in our group. The type of team the selectors about to be selecting will tell us about their expectation. If they are focusing on just playing well, selecting 15 or 11 will be a breeze. But if they are putting a team together which possibly could chase 300+ runs and possible could go to next round, they should add some major arsenals in the team by taking measured risks. This is not about building our one day team for future, this is freaking World Cup and it will be playing here!


If our focus is to only win against Ireland and rest to fans prayers, current team is more sufficient. But against the rest, choices are limited unless our selector wants to play safe. WC cricket dose not happen in home ground very often and our players are already familiar with the fields and environment. This is our best chance.

Fantastic post - agree 100% bro

[kalpurush]

Originally Posted by lamisa
this article explains our cricket cycle very clearly but with all due respect to the writer,please concentrate on writing in correct english next time...

You could have PM Mahmud bhai...^^^!!!

[kalpurush]

Originally Posted by ZeeshanM
If you wrote it, it's pretty good bro. =)

Indeed

[pagol-chagol]

Insightful. Thanks.

[Onelove]

Originally Posted by lamisa
this article explains our cricket cycle very clearly but with all due respect to the writer,please concentrate on writing in correct english next time...

please re read what you have written and explain to us, if such is "correct engrazi" if u wish, i can help with your grammar.

[Bancan]

Originally Posted by Onelove
please re read what you have written and explain to us, if such is "correct engrazi" if u wish, i can help with your grammar.

Both of you are fobs.

[bujhee kom]

Yes, totally, I am mahmud bhai, just like serious bodybuilding, it's no pain, no gain!

[zainab]

I hope that Siddons go for at least 3 weeks of training camp.
They need practice in Bowling, fielding and batting. At the moment, England, Australia, New Zealand, pakistan,India, South Africa are playing, also I heard the the Windians are going to SL this weekend to play 5 ODIs,
so all national teams are playing international cricket except Bangladesh, this is not in their favour at all, so i hope that Siddons is very tough on their training.

[lamisa]

Originally Posted by Onelove
please re read what you have written and explain to us, if such is "correct engrazi" if u wish, i can help with your grammar.

please do...

[imahmud]

As fans are getting excited for the WC, at the same time they are enthusiastically debating about the team selection, composition and inclusion, exclusion and as usual they are talking about Ash. It was not long ago before the WC'07, inclusion of Ash took the center stage and it was stormy. "Ash should be axed", "Ash should be sacked" etc. And also as a matter of fact, some of the fans were asking for sacking Tamim as well for his frequent inconsistency in the Premiere League. They wanted a team with players who are consistence with their performance. But Dave Whatmore gambled, stuck to his plan (just like e did with SRI Lanka), and we already know the rest. Again this is WC not ODI series. Consistency is important but team like us, we need to gamble, we would like to have a hope.

Last several series, we took a bowling oriented approach to compensate our batting weakness. We either did not score good target against the opponents or had to chase a low scoring targets. And in both cases we succeeded, thanks to our bowlers and their dominance. So our batting power was tested and our bowlers came to the rescue. Since this is WC, not another ODI series, I would like to see the same trend (bowling dominance) and at the same time add some batting fire power to have a balanced team for the coming WC. It is better to fight with hope and dream to win WC, instead of JUST fighting well to show good performance.

[Haru-party]

Originally Posted by lamisa
please do...

Ingrezite durbol....tence mathay dhuke na....perts of speach porte gele matha ghure

It is an doesnt matter!!!

choile asho 'noy matrivasha tobuo bolibo khasha' coaching centre.....ekhane nobel prize prapto sroddheyo haru-party sir oti jotno sohokare ingrezi shikkha dan koren. chatrider jonno bishesh private bebostha

vat khaite chamuch lage na
ingrezi koite dat vangena



2 diner moddhe tota pakhir moto forfor koriya ingrezi bolite na parile poysa ferot

[imahmud]

Also, team selection has become critical as all stakeholders want their piece of the pie. Jamie Siddons wants a team which is consistent, with lower risk, just like our current team. Even lossing with this team, there are less chances to have embarrassing defeats. This will complement his portfolio after the WC one way or another. He does not want to gamble as there’s too much at stake for him. Our selectors are in similar situation and our fans want to win. It would be hard to balance the differences and it also would be hard to satisfy everyone. We’ll just wait and see.

[crikfreak]

mashrafe only got pain... no gain.... :S :S

[beshideshi]

http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/da...19/news/124759

Hardest day in my life- Mashrafe

[Night_wolf]

Originally Posted by crikfreak
mashrafe only got pain... no gain.... :S :S

ash only gains..no pain

[Shumit]

I disagree with the line that "Cricket is all about runs". Cricket is all about taking wickets. Bowlers win matches, not the batsmen.