Consistent failures from positions of strength, where lies the problem?

[Miraz]

It's really baffling to see time and again we are losing matches after matches after gaining some ground and reaching a position of strength. ODIs and Test matches alike, it's the same old story. We will dominate few sessions, few passage of play here and there and eventually throw it all out to succumb to a big defeat.

We are not probably good enough to challenge the opposition on a consistent basis, we probably don't believe in our abilities when we are on top and lack the killer blow.

If we look at our cricket history, it's a tale of lost opportunities. Multan, Fatullah, Chittagong, Darwin... everywhere we failed to cross the line after positions of strength.

I personally think at any point of time we always have a poor team combination and occasional personal brilliance put us on top, but failures from others allow the opposition to come back strong and we can't simply resist that.

Rafiq, Bashar and Nafees put us on top against Australia in Fatullah, the rest failed to give them minimal support and we know the result. Same happened in Chittagong where Shahadat and Shakib put us on top against India and the rest simply didn't bother to turn up. Tamim's brilliance gave us hope in the second Test and the rest decided to play spoilsport.

Again today, we had our moments both during bowling and batting, but at the end thrashed by 146 runs!!!

We are probably not good enough yet to win matches against top eight teams as we still rely on personal brilliance and oppositions failure.

We all understand Ash has to go, but can't find a suitable replacement. Roqibul needs a break but who is there to stand up and take the opportunity? Aftab? Probably not. We desperately need three top order batsmen to take the positions of Ashraful, Roqibul and another opener who will play sensibly. I don't see them coming, do you?

[BD-Shardul]

I didn't watch the match today, but has anyone of our batsmen threw their wicket away or did they try their best but failed to play the bolwing of NZ?

As for having no replacement of Ash and Rokib goes to show that how bad our domestic cricket is.

[Baundule]

Originally Posted by Miraz
We all understand Ash has to go, but can't find a suitable replacement. Roqibul needs a break but who is there to stand up and take the opportunity? Aftab? Probably not. We desperately need three top order batsmen to take the positions of Ashraful, Roqibul and another opener who will play sensibly. I don't see them coming, do you?

The answer to your question lies here. The main problem is with the management. In Bangladesh kids start playing cricket before they start to walk and at the top level we do not find any replacement even to pathetic performers. It translates to the problems of the management to nurture cricket and cricketers.

Over and over again, the management has gone with the traditional Bangladeshi political way, they have failed to spot on the problems and find proper solutions. You will find good performances here and there only because of the 'talent' of the players. But when it comes to the planning and execution of the plan, especially for a longer period, we are always miserable.

As an example of how the management (and many of us, fans) failed to spot on the problems of the team, I may mention the WC07 performances. Apart from beating India we played terrible cricket. The South Africa match was 'Ashraful being lucky' and some personal briliances of the bowlers; but I can give it also a benefit of doubt. In all other matches, we played sub-standard cricket, lost to Ireland and almost losing to even Bermuda! But at the end, our 7th position was celebrated without spotting on or working on those poor performances.

The WI tour, where we white-washed the makeshift team, could easily go the other way. Planningwise WI themselves are probably worse than us, we were benefitted of dropped catches as well. We perceived it as a huge success! Success it is, for sure; but the mistakes were all eclipsed.

And now how that 'success' is read by the managemnt? If I can remember correctly, Siddons wanted to win the ODI series against NZ.

[beshideshi]

I think the problem is with the approach we have. When a wicket falls, regardless of what the target/RRR is, it is essential to settle in and consolidate. That is simply missing in our team. Be it our last generation messiah[Ash] or present generation one[shakib].
And with bowling, once a bowler gets hit for 4/6, you often see the bowler taking that extra few seconds before the next one. Just trying to unsettle the batsman, but today when OramSlaught was on, I could not see much thinking going on. These things are often more difficult to comprehend when some one's on field, but the team management/coach must have some say at these stages.

About what Baundule said, tamims 151 was marvelous, was brilliant, and what not. But what if he was caught off one of the shots he played when he was in 30s? These sorts of innings/attitude will only yield us short time, spark like success. We need players like Ian Harvey, Damian Martyn, Hanse Cronje, who will give the team 30-40 runs or 1-2 wicket every single game rather than one *magical* innings followed by string of failures

[hbk619]

Originally Posted by Miraz
It's really baffling to see time and again we are losing matches after matches after gaining some ground and reaching a position of strength. ODIs and Test matches alike, it's the same old story. We will dominate few sessions, few passage of play here and there and eventually throw it all out to succumb to a big defeat.

We are not probably good enough to challenge the opposition on a consistent basis, we probably don't believe in our abilities when we are on top and lack the killer blow.

If we look at our cricket history, it's a tale of lost opportunities. Multan, Fatullah, Chittagong, Darwin... everywhere we failed to cross the line after positions of strength.

I personally think at any point of time we always have a poor team combination and occasional personal brilliance put us on top, but failures from others allow the opposition to come back strong and we can't simply resist that.

Rafiq, Bashar and Nafees put us on top against Australia in Fatullah, the rest failed to give them minimal support and we know the result. Same happened in Chittagong where Shahadat and Shakib put us on top against India and the rest simply didn't bother to turn up. Tamim's brilliance gave us hope in the second Test and the rest decided to play spoilsport.

Again today, we had our moments both during bowling and batting, but at the end thrashed by 146 runs!!!

We are probably not good enough yet to win matches against top eight teams as we still rely on personal brilliance and oppositions failure.

We all understand Ash has to go, but can't find a suitable replacement. Roqibul needs a break but who is there to stand up and take the opportunity? Aftab? Probably not. We desperately need three top order batsmen to take the positions of Ashraful, Roqibul and another opener who will play sensibly. I don't see them coming, do you?

it's because we always want to win the game without a perfect game plan. selectors are culprit #1. They can't even judge the players. Siddons #2. He doesn't even know what should be the batting order and who should play in the team. Mr. Proud Al Hasan #3. After defeating west indies and zimbabwe, he started to feel proud. also he feels proud for #1 odi allrounder in the world. He believes he is going to have blast performance against top class teams because he is #1 allrounder. Now he is facing te actual reality.

[Gowza]

positives for BD cricket:

- population
- talent

negatives for BD cricket:

- everything else. BCB, selectors, management, coaching, infrastructure in general, cricket culture.

they need to stop with this silly business of playing naeem and riyad so far down the order, they can get away with being classed as allrounders in one-day cricket but that doesn't mean they should have to bat so far down the order. in tests they should be consisdered middle order batsmen.

as for ash, why is he in the team? he's no good nowadays, if they want an ash type player they should be picking kapali because at least he offers a bit more with the ball and they don't lose anything with the bat.

i'm really starting to think that they should outsource to improve the culture, standard and infrastructure. if they can't get quality coaches in BD and quality cricket influences from within BD then get them from somewhere else. it's pointless to put everything into the national team e.g. improting a foreign coach and to ignore the domestic structure. if ytou want better quality players then get better quality teachers at as many levels as possible.

we could blame the issues on a few player of the current generation, fact is the support isn't there to produce quality players and maybe things will develop naturally on their own eventually but it would be more beneficial to try and help things along the way by inserting some better quality coaches who not only teach good technique but teach players how to think like a cricket, teach teams a good cricket culture and teach them to be strong mentally.

[Mahmood]

Top, middle and lower order somehow thinks one of them has to work today. So if top order did good, there goes the middle and lower order, when top order does bad, middle order kicks in, lower order sucks. If both top and middle order fails, the lower order teaches batting.

Why can't they all click on the same day? Perhaps, we should blind fold each player, so they have no idea where we are, when sending them to bat, tell them we are 0/9. And make them promise to never look at the score board. That might help.

[SS]

Problems ...Problems...in mind and soul
And in the core of management role
When you see the decisions made by cricket body as a whole
You wonder even the BC Poster have better brain control
You go to the headquarter at 11, get a tea and cream roll
You come home with goodies from tours, who cares about the famous Shamim mia's poll

[Naimul_Hd]

Problem lies almost everywhere.

and best solution is to migrate few SL, Ind or Pak players who are repeatedly knocking the door of National team but cant get through it. The best example is England. If England can hire few SA players, why cant we ?? All our players are tigers in their domestic league but whenever they show up in National team, they somehow manage to fail in all dept. and it will continue as long as we will play. So, its better to hire good foreign players and give them Certificate to play for Bangladesh. Otherwise i cant see any solutions coming through our system.

[Tokai]

I think we need to bring back Rajin Saleh as one down batsman to keep things in place. The roll of sheet anchor has been removed from ODI by the recent attitude changes toward the game, specially after the introduction of powerplay. We have failed to live up to that standard and more often than not, we through away good opening with a huge collaspe from middle order. As if we don't have any middle order, we get openers and then tailenders.

Obviously, it is not working for us and we need someone who can just hold his position on one end and rotate the strike. We don't have anyone in the team to do that right now (Rahim comes close to it, but not close enough). Roquibul and Ashraful has been the weakest of the chain lately supported by the captain himself joining the group. This need to be sorted out.

Both Ash and Rok must go. For at least 6 months. However, I do not have any faith in the ability of Aftab anymore. What he showed in T20 proves that any of the ICLer are used to a different mentality where you are supposed to not use your head. Not to mention, they proved beyond any doubt their commitment toward the country by leaving. Also, we need some major shake up on the line up as well. Here is what, in my opinion the line up should be. Keep in mind, Rajin is a gone case and can't be a long term solution. He is a stopgap that we need to avoid collasping like a deck of card.

This should be the playing line up:

#1 Tamim
#2 Kayes
#3 Rajin
#4 Mushfique
#5 Mahmudullah
#6 Naem
#7 Shakib (because he needs a break from batting but we can't give him one)
#8 Nabil Samad/Shuvo/any of the U19/NCL performer
#9 -#11 bowlers

[Tigers_eye]

We can't do the fundamental things!! Catching and rotating strike!! You don't have to be technically sound or anything. A simple concentration will allow a player to be a hero. Oram didn't hit the innings had Mushi removed Broom. Same for the T20, tests. Those kill the game at this level. The limited opportunity we have, we must capitalize.

[dark mage]

Originally Posted by Miraz
We all understand Ash has to go, but can't find a suitable replacement. Roqibul needs a break but who is there to stand up and take the opportunity? Aftab? Probably not. We desperately need three top order batsmen to take the positions of Ashraful, Roqibul and another opener who will play sensibly. I don't see them coming, do you?

I share your sentiments but espcially this part of your post was really well written, and I couldnt agree with you more on this. Who are gonna replace these players? Dont say promote Mahamudullah and Nayeem up the order, then who will fill their empty spots down the order? Dont say Aftab is a suitable replacement, as he is the same trash. Your question is also my question

[auntu]

কিছু প্লেয়ারদের দিয়ে হবে না এইটা বুঝতে হবে। বিসিবিতে দরকার প্রফেশনালিজম এবং রাজনৈতিক নিয়োগ সম্পূর্ণ বন্ধ করা দরকার।

[Miraz]

Tokai, Rajin is no solution. He is painful to watch. He can neither hit nor rotate the strike. He is a grafter, true, but pretty incompetent grafter.

[aklemalp]

[QUOTE=dark mage;1068584] Dont say promote Mahamudullah and Nayeem up the order, then who will fill their empty spots down the order?

[Roni_uk]

Originally Posted by SS
Problems ...Problems...in mind and soul
And in the core of management role
When you see the decisions made by cricket body as a whole
You wonder even the BC Poster have better brain control
You go to the headquarter at 11, get a tea and cream roll
You come home with goodies from tours, who cares about the famous Shamim mia's poll

brilliant rap. going round in my head now.

[auntu]

Originally Posted by miraz
tokai, rajin is no solution. He is painful to watch. He can neither hit nor rotate the strike. He is a grafter, true, but pretty incompetent grafter.

রাজিনের যুগ আমরা অনেক আগেই পার করে এসেছি।

[magic boy]

In my opinion:

Confidence:
Players like Imrul,Mahmudullah,Raqibs are struggling only and only due to lack of CONFIDENCE. They can but can't mark their 100%performance for this CONFIDENCE.
while players like Ashraful,Shakib,Rajib,Naeem(Recently) are suffering from OVER CONFIDENCE. They once showed what they can and they're still thinking same thing will happen in every match. but truth is they should CONCENTRATE on average performance avoiding past records and glory.

suggestion:

-Someone should break their over confidence, like selectors did avoiding Khaled Masud Pilot after his blatant speech, "I am automatic choice in national team" (before 2003 WC).
YES ...Bold decision/selection.

-and Allah knows how those players (zero confident) can be confident enough to perform up to the mark !


Juju & no outside power(!): They are not Shachin,Shourov,Arjuna Ranatunga. There are no big boss for them to protect or providing full support to play free mindfully. Look at Tamim,Shahreer Nafees. They knew/know someone with bigger official power can fight for them.well, true good players don't need them but most of the players in current national team are afraid of being kicked out from side. in this situation other country's players can save their place with good performance. but in our team, many of them fail to do so.

reasons:

• they are not old enough to be that kinda hero. Like Shourov Ganguy did. and many others.
• there's no alternative place to prepare strongly.

suggestion:

- we don't have powerful domestic stage to prepare for fighting back in those situations. they score 1/2 centuries and selectors thinks ''HE IS NOW OK TO BE IN THE TEAM !''


-Lack of communications...I mean coach-players, stuffs-players, board-players communications. I thinks there is still certain this kinda communication gap going on with some players !

[BD-Shardul]

Originally Posted by auntu
কিছু প্লেয়ারদের দিয়ে হবে না এইটা বুঝতে হবে।

বুঝলাম রে ভাই। কিন্তু পাইপলাইন থেকে যাদের আনবেন, তাদের দিয়ে যে হবে, সেটার গ্যারান্টি কি? গ্যারান্টি নাই। কারণ আমাদের পাইপলাইন এমন খেলোয়ার প্রস্তুত করে না, যারা আন্তর্জাতিক ম্যাচে ধারাবাহিক ভাবে পারফর্ম করার জন্য ট্যাকনিকাল ও মানসিকভাবে যোগ্য। জাতীয় দলের কলিমুদ্দি খারাপ খেললে, আমরা ভাবি, নির্বাচক-ব্যবস্থাপকেরা ভাবে, সলিমুদ্দি নামক প্রতিভাবান প্লেয়ার আনলে কাজ হবে। তারপর নতুন মুখ সলিমুদ্দির ট্যালান্ট এর ঠেলায় দুই-তিন ম্যাচে পাবলিকের থাকে না হুঁশ। ব্যস এই পর্যন্তই। সলিমুদ্দির ট্যালন্ট হঠাৎ করেই দলকে সামনে নেয়ার পরিবর্তে উলটা জগদ্দল পাথরেরে মত দলের বোঝা হয়ে দাঁড়ায়। যেমন হয়েছে আশরাফুল, রকিবুল। কিন্তু, সামনে তো আমাদের এগুতে হবেই। তবে আসল সমস্যার সমাধান না করে আমরা হারিকেন নিয়ে বেরিয়ে পড়ি নতুন সলিমদ্দির, নতুন মাসিয়াহর খোঁজে। পেয়েও যাই। টেস্ট স্ট্যাটাস পাওয়ার ১০ বছর পরও সেজন্য ধারাবাহিক পরাজয়ের পর, লজ্জার মাথা খেয়ে, ৩২ দন্ত নিরাভরণ করে আমাদের বলতে হয় "বেরাদার, আমাদের দলটা খুব তরুণ ত, খেলা শিখছে"।

[Miraz]

Shardul, new players are sometimes better prepared compared to so call experienced ones who refuses to learn. Take Shafiul as an example. He is learning pretty quickly. He does not have a super talent like Mohammad Amer, but he can go a distance in international cricket.


It's much better to give a new player fair run (at least 10 ODIs) to establish themselves in the team compared to giving countless opportunities to 150+ ODI experienced player.

[aklemalp]

i totally agree with you miraz,very well said in short and concise words

[BD-Shardul]

^^^ Dr. Miraz , I understand your point. I am just too frustrated today . And everyone in the forum know how birokto I am with Ashraful

[aklemalp]

um.,.,wat does birokto mean?

[Raynman]

Originally Posted by Miraz
Shardul, new players are sometimes better prepared compared to so call experienced ones who refuses to learn. Take Shafiul as an example. He is learning pretty quickly. He does not have a super talent like Mohammad Amer, but he can go a distance in international cricket.


It's much better to give a new player fair run (at least 10 ODIs) to establish themselves in the team compared to giving countless opportunities to 150+ ODI experienced player.

Shafiul was great in how he bounce back after an early thrashing by Ingram/Taylor. Shahadat on the other hand did the opposite.

I always feel that Mash and Shahadat are bowlers that should just be bowled through when they have their rhythm as they are never able to regain it after the initial break.

[Raynman]

Originally Posted by Miraz

We all understand Ash has to go, but can't find a suitable replacement. Roqibul needs a break but who is there to stand up and take the opportunity? Aftab? Probably not. We desperately need three top order batsmen to take the positions of Ashraful, Roqibul and another opener who will play sensibly. I don't see them coming, do you?

Why can't we persist with the replacements for the 6 ODIs vs. ENG (home and away) and take away the pressure on them to perform first game or they're out (like we did for SN in IND test and Aftab in NZ T20)?

This should be applicable if the replacements are SN, Aftab or someone new like Rony or Forhad or whoever.

Mahmadullah and Naeem are more than capable of taking up slots 4 and 5 so replacing Raqib is really not a concern. Drop Shakib down and to become the late slogger during batting powerplays, replace Mushfiq with a more capable keeper and I think we can be in much better shape without mass overhaul of the team.