Another Scyld Berry Piece: this time with a slightly different tone

[Miraz]

I am skipping the first few paragraphs on England's achievement from this series.

Bangladesh tour: lessons for Alastair Cook, England and the world


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BANGLADESH
World cricket needs Bangladesh – not the weedy Test team that kept losing for their first decade of premature Test status – but a vibrant Bangladesh in all formats, which can be achieved, given the right kind of help.
The pluses are considerable. The country has a population of 160 million for whom cricket is the main sport. Their regular cricket press corps is as large as that of any country, with a growing newspaper circulation. The finest cricket writing outside English is in Bengali. And they have three players of real international class in the opener Tamim Iqbal, all-rounder Shakib al Hasan and batsman/keeper Mushfiqur Rahim. When they are playing well, Bangladesh adds to the gaiety of Test nations a distinctive flair – part-Asian, part-West Indian – that is more than the boldness of youth, and should be nurtured.
Annul Bangladesh from the Test records before this year if needs be, but do not remove Test status now – those three leading cricketers are good enough to show the way, and have a decade ahead of them.
But Bangladesh keep falling between stools, poor in every format. What they should do, therefore, is concentrate on the short forms of 20- and 50-over cricket, in which some success can be more quickly achieved. Meanwhile, they should be encouraged – financially helped – to make A tours to countries with better, bouncier pitches than their own, so they can play first-class, four-day cricket away from the limelight. There they can start to work on their biggest failing and learn how to bat for long periods (it is some condemnation that their longest individual Test innings was played in their inaugural Test in 2000). Interspersed between these tours can be the occasional Test series against lighter opposition, such as their next series of two Tests at home to New Zealand in October.
As half the population is malnourished, other countries with Bangladeshi communities have to help by identifying and encouraging pace bowlers and referring them to Dhaka. Also, using pitches of coir matting (made from local coconut fibre) below first-class level would benefit native bowlers and batsmen, because they have pace and bounce if laid correctly.
For while Bangladesh could be sometimes, even consistently, competitive on their own slow pitches, they are going to be cut down like the Light Brigade when the ball seams and swings, as it will if Lord's is cloudy in late May, or if it bounces, as it will at Old Trafford in early June. Bangladesh need help, of the right kind, which has not been forthcoming so far, but they can do it long-term.

[beshideshi]

The finest cricket writing outside English is in Bengali.

this is a huge thing to say. With India in the table.
Also, after reading many post series articles, the mental attitude of the English press is that, Bangladesh are a decent enough team, who have 4-5 international class players, and withing 4-5 years they should be a real force in world cricket.
We all knew what the Brits are saying now, but there is nothing like getting recognition from English press, I thought it would take at least one victory to do so, but our boys' apparently showed enough glimpses of strength and character. I just hope we don't throw all these compliments away when we visit England.

[Shaan]

at least they are putting more emphasis in our positives and taking our players on serious note. These grading, marking, ranking all telling that how much they started to respect our players level of cricket, compare to past time.

[_Rafi_]

Agevage sujog nicche! BD tho emnithei 3-4 yrs pore big force hoye jabe, thokhon bole berabe ami tho agai predict korechilam

[kalpurush]

Originally Posted by Miraz
I am skipping the first few paragraphs on England's achievement from this series.

Bangladesh tour: lessons for Alastair Cook, England and the world


BANGLADESH
World cricket needs Bangladesh –.

Much thanks Miraz bhai for the read.

Surmormo:

* Tigers should play hard with 110% efforts
* BCB should make sporting pitches
* Four/Five Day matches
* More A -Team tours
* URDS in all BD matches
and more...

...we are set to take ...

[IanW]

My god, what an idiot.

I mean, seriously.

As far as fast bowlers go, Rubel Hossain came out of the Pacer Hunt - go on, look him up here on BC. I can probably find the post where he was first mentioned as young and quick.

As far as more four day cricket, yes - but the time to do this is in longer tours of other cricketing countries. It's notable that Rubel and Shaiful bowled well in Hamilton, but that was their only long game in NZ.

As far as 50 over cricket developing quicks goes, someone clearly hasnt been paying attention over the last 30 years or so.

Oh, and three genuine world-class players ... thats two more than NZ usually have.

Finally, as far as swing goes, I'd have more respect if he'd have said anything about the game in Hamilton which was, oh, two months ago. The kids did OK - not great, but ok, and there was swing in the air at times.

But we'll see. I'm interested in seeing how Shaiful goes in England, and we'll probably play Shahadat, and Rubel can make it reverse. They'll probably do us away, but we'll get our licks in.

[Orpheus]

Originally Posted by beshideshi
The finest cricket writing outside English is in Bengali.

this is a huge thing to say. With India in the table.
.

I was wondering if he knows how to read bangla.. how would you judge that - you would have to by reading the english articles in bd... which aren't really that good in my opinion. Having said that it is not really a huge thing to say... Bengali people (that bd and w. bengal) have always been very rich in literary works...

anyways, some of his comments are kinda retarded. Like the one where he suggested we look to NRBs for fast bowling because half of the country is malnaurished. LOL. How did brits get the best cricket journalist title?

[Aritro]

That malnourished/NRBs thing is one of the more idiotic suggestions I've ever seen appear in a respected online publication.

Still, I've always advocated playing series against A teams and am still yet to be convinced its not a good idea. If we played actual series against them, there'd be an incentive to win and a decent level of intensity in the matches while the boys would learn to win against experience pros. Sadly, convention and financial considerations mean it'll never happen.

More four-day matches when we're on tour is obviously another thing we've been crying out for, but our scheduling tends to see us play lots of series in quick succession (and then doing bugger all for 4 months of a year) so there's rarely time to squeeze matches in, plus the costs involved in playing extended tours with four-day matches against first class sides are hardly likely to make them a popular suggestion at BCB board meetings. The ICC really need to find a way to step-in on both the cost and scheduling issues on this front if they want us to start resembling a test team.

[AsifTheManRahman]

Originally Posted by Aritro
That malnourished/NRBs thing is one of the more idiotic suggestions I've ever seen appear in a respected online publication.

That totally put me off.

[Aritro]

As poor a country as we may be overall, the adequately nourished and secondary school educated classes of Bangladesh number in the millions and millions.

The more I think about it, the more preposterous that comment sounds. What a ****ing idiot.

Just incredibly lazy logic.

[AsifTheManRahman]

Frankly, I don't appreciate the way the English media has brought up the poverty in every other article during and after this tour. Yes, there's poverty, but it's not exactly relevant to the cricket. It might have an impact on the game in its own ways, but had it been such a deterrent to the growth of cricket, India or even Sri Lanka wouldn't have been where they are today.

If they must write about non-cricket related stuff, there's a lot that they have at their disposal - the rich culture, the language, the people, the food and the nature for example. If poverty is all that they've seen, then I'm sorry, they haven't been around much during their stay in Bangladesh and need to shut up when it comes to stuff external to the game.

[SMHasan]

Annul Bangladesh from the Test records before this year if needs be....

Still I would say that this guy is a snobby Brit.

We know very well that we are not rich, our people don't get enough nutrition, but hey why they have to mention it again and again?

Even if We beat them at Lords this summer still they will say- oh...England had a bad day you know......

[AsifTheManRahman]

It's as if they don't see poverty when they go to other places in the subcontinent.

[dark mage]

Originally Posted by SMHasan
Still I would say that this guy is a snobby Brit.

We know very well that we are not rich, our people don't get enough nutrition, but hey why they have to mention it again and again?

Even if We beat them at Lords this summer still they will say- oh...England had a bad day you know......

I agree with you about the snobby part, however, I think the british media will tear the English team apart if they ever lost to us. The English media is very scary

[Neel Here]

Originally Posted by AsifTheManRahman
Frankly, I don't appreciate the way the English media has brought up the poverty in every other article during and after this tour.....

it hurts to go from an empire to an international dwarf within a span of 50 years, with the few fields that you dominate(d) like cricket also going out of your hands to those hated sub-continentals that your forefathers used to treat like animals only a few decades ago.
all that rankles. you need to put them down regularly to feel good about yourself and assure yourself that all is not lost. certainly, I'm generalising a bit but 90% of BBC,guardian and the like falls in this category.

[SMHasan]

Originally Posted by AsifTheManRahman
Frankly, I don't appreciate the way the English media has brought up the poverty in every other article during and after this tour. Yes, there's poverty, but it's not exactly relevant to the cricket. It might have an impact on the game in its own ways, but had it been such a deterrent to the growth of cricket, India or even Sri Lanka wouldn't have been where they are today.

If they must write about non-cricket related stuff, there's a lot that they have at their disposal - the rich culture, the language, the people, the food and the nature for example. If poverty is all that they've seen, then I'm sorry, they haven't been around much during their stay in Bangladesh and need to shut up when it comes to stuff external to the game.

Spot on. Seems like there is nothing to write about when not thinking Cricket. It seems they tried to show the negative sides too often.

They travel a lot thus it is expected that they know about this world better than other people. But alas what we do not know that they came to our country with a mission!!

[SMHasan]

Originally Posted by dark mage
I agree with you about the snobby part, however, I think the british media will tear the English team apart if they ever lost to us. The English media is very scary

Question is the whether the British media is scary or scared?

[AsifTheManRahman]

Let me clarify that I don't think that the history of the two countries and two centuries of colonialism has anything to do with what the English media churns out. Neither do I think they are "on a mission". Maybe they are, maybe history does have something to do with it - I don't know and neither am I interested.

I'm just sick of these people making it sound like they landed on a different planet when in reality, these problems are out there in other countries too and they never seem to make an issue of it. The focus needs to be on cricket and valid reasons that make us suck at it.

[Neel Here]

that's my point as well, they should focus on the cricket and cricket alone. but the fact that they find a need to bring in non-cricketing issues virtually every time points to a larger problem. also didn't mean that "they are on a mission", I don't think they do it very deliberately. you will find it in non-cricket articles as well. but I understand this is off-topic, sorry for that.

[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by AsifTheManRahman
Let me clarify that I don't think that the history of the two countries and two centuries of colonialism has anything to do with what the English media churns out. Neither do I think they are "on a mission". Maybe they are, maybe history does have something to do with it - I don't know and neither am I interested.

I'm just sick of these people making it sound like they landed on a different planet when in reality, these problems are out there in other countries too and they never seem to make an issue of it. The focus needs to be on cricket and valid reasons that make us suck at it.

i'm sure they talk about poverty in India...my mother just saw "slumdog millionaire" couple weeks back and said "dekho, india te kemon gorib manush thake, eto nongra...bangladesher bosti tew ato mowla dekba na".

not sure how accurate that statement is, but i'm sure the europeans talk about poverty in india/pakistan/sl as well.

[Aritro]

To be fair, I spent the first 8 years of my life in Dhaka and when I went back for the first time when I was 12, the poverty just completely dominated my perspective on the place.

It must stand out a hundred times more acutely to an actual Westerner.

On the other side of the coin, it's not like these journalists/former players have never seen the sub-continent before. Now we may of course be the least developed out of the 4 cricket playing subcontinent nations, but there's no reason why their narrative of the place should focus on the poverty as relentlessly as it has done.

[Farhad]

I'm surprised by how few articles in the English media are well researched. Its always the same recycled crap. I wouldn't mind so much if they weren't also full of backhanded compliments. The English love those....

And I thought the American sports media was bad...

[AsifTheManRahman]

Originally Posted by al Furqaan
i'm sure the europeans talk about poverty in india/pakistan/sl as well.

That's not the problem. The issue here is the English media and the number of articles you find on Cricinfo/BBC/elsewhere that take a dig at India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka when England tours these countries.

[AsifTheManRahman]

Originally Posted by Aritro
On the other side of the coin, it's not like these journalists/former players have never seen the sub-continent before. Now we may of course be the least developed out of the 4 cricket playing subcontinent nations, but there's no reason why their narrative of the place should focus on the poverty as relentlessly as it has done.

And that's my point. We're underdeveloped, yes, we're poor, yes, we have nothing much to be proud of post independence, yes, but what you just said is the point I've been trying to make.

[NKVDv2]

ummm sclyld berry, what are u smoking ?

what good is ur country good at -

mid level cricketing nation - you have rankings only because there are fewere cricketing tims than the total finger count

u are not european (EU hates u), u r not american (america insults you), and you are not indian (indians trample you)

you live in an island

man, i am bored already