Views from afar

[IanW]

It's another cold morning in Canberra, and the news from Sabina Park is less than good.

Sarwan and Chanderpaul both cut loose, and with six and a bit sessions to play, Bangladesh have lost both openers and Saleh.

This game is no longer about winning and losing, it's now about respect.

It's not time to shut up shop - Bangladesh's batsmen wont bat five sessions playing that way.

The batsmen need to take the game twenty runs at a time ; if it's there, hit it, and if it isnt, defend.

It's about toughing it out, and showing that while the Tigers may lose, they wont lose meekly.

In my view, by batting so long, Lara took a chance with the weather - a lead of 200 should have been enough, but he batted on and on, and if Bangladesh hang tough, then the Caribbean weather may save Bangladesh.

But it's a matter of taking things in small chunks of time and runs. First you get to 50, then you play out the day, and see what tomorrow brings.

Once you get to tomorrow, then you keep batting, twenty runs at a time.

Thats all it's about now, keeping on batting, and putting together a respectable target.

Even if it's lost, by scoring better than they did in the first innings, Bangladesh will raise the bar for the next opponent.

Belief in your ability and respect from your opponents ; these are Bangladesh's medium term goals, and by making the West Indies fight for the win, they can take half a dozen steps to achieving both of them.

[Zephaniah]

Someone need to send this post to our batsmen ASAP. Playing to save a match is an unknown territory for our batsmen. Even if they want to save the match, i believe, they don't know how to do it. There are no demons in the pitch. So if they take things in small chunks of time and runs, like Mr. Whitechurch suggested, it's still possible to avoid an innings defeat and earn some respect out of this game. We hear about 'New Bangladesh'. Hope they will show it just one more time in this series.

[rafiq]

I haven't been able to watch the match closely since Friday. I am shocked not so much in seeing the 500+ WI score, but that we took no further wickets after Tino Best. Are we back to the days of having a toothless bowling attack? Is this simply a batting track - I thought our pacers were going to extract something from the pitch as well. And Rana was going to mesmerize the opposition?

I know everyone here is sick to the stomach - but what went wrong? We should have taken those catches early in their innings is my guess. This series has been the worst one for catches by both teams in quite a while.

[Nascer]

[Edited on 6-9-2004 by Nascer]

[Arnab]

I saw till lunch, and there were no catches offered. The ball came to the bat quite nicely. There was no pressure on the batsmen, and they took no risks either.

[rassel]

Originally posted by Nascer
We are tormented and battered. I am so exhausted, I can't even sleep. To follow BD cricket or not to follow that is the question I ask myself!

[Edited on 6-7-2004 by Nascer]

I recommend Zoloft! It works quite well! It’s the best therapy out there in the market right now. By the way, it seems to be working for number of folks in this board as well.

[fwullah]

I believe that one thing among many that went wrong was our wrong belief in our spinners.

How many times did we say that we have world class spinners? I am afraid it was way too many times that we had said that.

And ofcourse the other thing is our so-called inconsistency - if we play well one match, then we don't play well in another match - things like that.

Also another very important thing - Whatmore is not with the team now, so I don't know how that has affected the team, my only wish is that it has affected the team in a good way. I mean, Whatmore will not be for all the Bangladesh teams, lets say, may be after the 2007 World Cup, then what would the players do? Will they go back to the pre-Whatmore era of '77 all out' again and again?

[IanW]

Fwullah,

Before you crucify Rafique and Manjural, lemme tell you about a kid who, in his first test, ran into a couple of good batsmen on a not friendly track. He got belted. He got carted. He got hit to all parts of the ground.

He didnt get hit for 100 runs, he got hit for 150 runs, and all that for one wicket.

1991-2 Indian tour of Australia, at the SCG.

Kid's name was Shane Warne.

Slow bowlers need time to develop. They are rarely world class from day 1.

Frankly, Rafique is a better offspinner than Australia, New Zealand or South Africa have right now. It's just that on that track, against those batsmen, he didnt do too well.

And Manjural needs time.

[crickwizard]

What went wrong? CATCHES and MISSED chatches- if Hannu Hablu could take the catch of Sarwan when Sarwan's score was only 21, it would have been a break thru for BD. Sigh....