Boycott On Bangladesh Cricket

[Neel Here]

My request to people, please read the whole thing before starting to throw eggs.

http://www.cricinfo.com/talk/content...ia/462496.html

AR: We now move on to the question that you have picked as the most topical for this fortnight. It's from Jyoti from India. You were in the news following Tamim Iqbal's century in the first Test against England and Jyoti asks whether the performance of Bangladesh this Test series against England done anything to alter your view of them playing Test cricket?

GB: Quite honestly, I haven't changed my views. They are not ready for Test cricket. Tamim is an extraordinary talent as an opening batsman. He has quick eyes, he sees the length of the ball very quickly, almost like a Brian Lara or Viv Richards. He is instinctive and has got hand-eye co-ordination, quick bat-speed and wonderful timing. He is a delight to watch. But after him they have a couple of others who can bat a bit but are nothing special. If the conditions are in their favour, with a lovely pitch and the ball not doing too much, they are okay. Junaid Siddique, Imrul Kayes are okay as well, but if the ball moves around, they struggle.

On the bowling side you need bowlers to get you 20 wickets. If you haven't got any bowlers who can get you 20 wickets you will never win a match. And this is the problem. I think they have 57 losses in 66 matches (59 losses in 68 games), three wins: one against Zimbabwe, who are not very good, and two against West Indies when all their top players were on strike and not playing. And then you have a 23-year-old as captain. I am not blaming him but at that age it is very difficult to have the maturity and experience; and he has the most difficult job because bowling-wise he has very little to work with.

Imrul Kayes was never comfortable against Steven Finn's short balls, England v Bangladesh, 2nd npower Test, Old Trafford, June 6, 2010
"If the ball moves around, Bangladesh struggle" © Getty Images

I think they need to have a huge bowling programme to unearth youngsters, particularly quicker bowlers with potential. They need to get some bowling guys like Dennis Lillee; get some great bowlers as consultants to work with the young kids and improve them.

They also need to alter their pitches. They have to think of getting some quicker, bouncier pitches, which would encourage fast bowlers. Who would want to bowl fast in Bangladesh? You have got to be wrong in your head. They have just batting pitches or slow turners. Once you leave Bangladesh, you need seamers. The ICC have got a lot of money, and if they really want to help Bangladesh, who have lovely people who are nuts on cricket, they should spend that money to send the full national side on tour to play in New Zealand against their provinces, play a couple of months or more against the English counties to get used to English conditions. You need the experience in these different conditions. They then need to go to Australia and play at Perth and Brisbane, where it is bouncy; it demands a different type of technique.

It is only through the experience of playing in different conditions will the batsmen and the bowlers get better. They have to find some seamers. Cricket is not just about batting. It is about everything. If you cannot get 20 wickets, I don't care how much we love Bangladesh and its gorgeous people, they are not going to do well and are going to keep on losing. If you keep on losing because you are not good enough, you get demoralised. You set negative fields and have a negative attitude. You need to have a positive attitude as an individual and as a team where there is an opportunity to win sometimes. They have to get used to playing in different conditions and have to do something about their pitches to help them produce seamers.

[beshideshi]

I think Boycott is upset with India having test status as well. So yeah, let him say what he wants

[rahat90]

I dont see whats wrong here to be honest, i agree with everything boycott said here.
everything that is apart from that 'bd are not ready for test cricket'.
maybe 10 years ago that was true, but we are improving. bowling is a worry, but bowlers such as shafiul and (a fit) mashrafe will give us hope.
and we definately do need some help from the icc

[ahnaf]

Kichuta true... Specially pitch r kothata nd speedy bouncing bowler r bapare..

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[cricket_king]

For once in my life, I agree with almost everything Boycott has said. Though, he obviously hasn't really followed our cricket, and if so, only recently, judging by his positive comments on Imrul. We need some bloody freaking bowlers. Our spinners suck too. Besides Shakib, which spinner can actually threatens to take wickets? None. Mahmudullah isn't too bad, but he isn't even used. Our bowling line-up is not much better than that Indian one sent to Zimbabwe.

[alibangali]

Our bowling has definetly gone down even by our modest standards. We never had quick bowlers yet the they used to bowl good line and length with variation of pace. The new gen of pacers get carried away by trying to bowl too fast and lose all control. Our spin bowlers were not huge turners of the ball yet they used to bowl consistently keeping pressure up until the batsmen bottled out. With bolwers like razzak (after change of action), Naeem and Riyadh there always seems to be a boundary bowl every over. We have lost discipline in the bowling and frankly the board seems to have given up on it. You cant win any match by scoring lots of runs, you also need to restrict the opposition and get them out. It seems that the egg heads running the show are clueless about the sport they manage.

[rudro]

Maybe this is the first time (and probably last considering how Boycott acts) I have to agree 100% with him.

[Purbasha T]

Lol, He dint mention his grandmother.

Maybe he got his lessons from Tamim, so din't say anything out of emotions but all out of logic. Good on him!

[Roni_uk]

As long as he does not involve his mum into any of this, I don't mind. Constructive critism is good.

[Sakibssmc]

Honestly speaking, BCB at the moment is full of crappy , incompetent officials. Thats where the main problem lies. Our u-15, u-17 teams should be sent to uk, aus, nz on a more regular basis. That wud be more fruitful. How many of d current bd playerz had experience of playing in uk pitches prior to this series? Only Ashraful( whos hopeles) i gues. Thats kinda ridiculous. The 'gaining xperience' part must be done in the junior teams.

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[Sakibssmc]

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[Tiger444]

Boycott made some very good points and was being very honest here..the thing is we are still not ready for test cricket..if we were then we would be threatening teams to win games but we are just not doing that because we dont have bowlers that can take 20 wickets and besides tamim we just dont have test caliber batsmen..I think we are definitely taking strides but we still have a long way to go in terms of threatening teams of winning in tests..but in ODIs we can still threaten to win games and for me I care about that more..cricket's shorter forms has gotten more popular and I care more about T20's and ODIs then tests..

[AsifTheManRahman]

^ But we can't win ODIs and T20s either. We're bleeped!

[crickwizard]

Finally Boycott making sense only on the part of how to improve BD Cricket. If BD didn't play Test Cricket as he suggested, the world would have missed two of Tamim's gorgeous centuries that Boycott himself compared with Viv and Lara.

ICC and BCB should have BD team tour around most of the time of the year and BCB needs to do the pitch work at home. These 2 are the keys. In short term they should really find a bowling solution, none of the pacers are upto standard for intl cricket, they are club cricket level. Mash has eaten too much vaat-ghost and lost form. I wish we kept Rafiq like Srilanka kept Jayasuriya.

[Tiger444]

Originally Posted by AsifTheManRahman
^ But we can't win ODIs and T20s either. We're bleeped!

ya true that..but at least we've gotten close in ODIs and T20s!!

[Zeeshan]

Why does he have to be like Lara or Richards? Why not like Gilchrist or Klusener or some other white blokes? Huh? Huh?

[BanCricFan]

Originally Posted by crickwizard
ICC and BCB should have BD team tour around most of the time of the year and BCB needs to do the pitch work at home. These 2 are the keys. In short term they should really find a bowling solution, none of the pacers are upto standard for intl cricket, they are club cricket level. Mash has eaten too much vaat-ghost and lost form. I wish we kept Rafiq like Srilanka kept Jayasuriya.

A bit harsh there. Shafi and Rubel are extremely talented bowlers who are not handled and guided properly. Shafis line and length is impeccable and can swing the ball, too. He needs to ball in tandem with someone like an in-form Mash. His temperament is right up there. Rubel needs to work intensively on his line and length. Potentially, he could be a world class bowler with his speed and reverse swing. He needs to add conventional swing to his arsenal.

We cannot judge our pacers based on one terrible tour. Lets not forget these were very unfamiliar conditons they played under. If you compare Shahadats maiden England tour and this one you will understand where I'm coming from. Its a shame that he has lost his pace significantly since his first tour.

Our pacers need to bowl more overs in FC matches in all conditions. They have very little experience there.

An in-form Mash, talented Shafi and a desciplined Rubel would make a very decent pace attack. And Shakib is one of the best spinners out there. Yes, you're absolutely right about Rafiq.

[Nafi]

Most of what he said was right

[Ashfaq]

TBH, He is right about our mindset. Though I'd say they importance of fast bowlers is overstated for Bangladesh. True, Fast bowlers are a necessity to win matches in a plethora of places, but we need to learn how to draw home matches first. We don't even have a pair of decent spinners working in tandem, and that problem is far more easily solved than finding a Bangladeshi LIllie, if such a concept even exists.

[aklemalp]

we can't expect shakib to take 20 wickets in a test match,he needs bak up bowlers to support him

[AK420]

GB is truely right, even what he said about Shakib,

[AK420]

its a nice six by GB

[auntu]

I have to say I agree every word he said here.
Perfect description of our cricket and also stated proper treatment.

[simon]

Asholay dosh orna dosh or name er ,namtaito Boycott,shey karonei shobaike boycott korar chinta kore.
He is right this time but wrong when he says BD r not ready for Test but we haven't done well engh to prove him wrong.
Anyway,what's the deal with his mom or grand mother? can some 1 tell me pls?

[AsifTheManRahman]

He once said that his grandmother could bat better than our batsmen. And he was right.