Our Primary Improvement Areas

[sharifk]

It’s so good to see our team has started to win matches in this WC. However to make it a habit, these two areas I believe need to be and can be addressed right away:

1. Our batsmen need to find gaps to get more 1s and 2s initially to settle in the middle before going for the big shots.
2. We need to have an alternative bowling option in case of any problem or any performance related issue arises to any of our 5 main bowlers.

Talented Tamim, Aftab and Ashraful get out many times when they have scored only 20 or 30 something because they don’t apply approach #1. They tend to play with “all or nothing” approach. This is why we don’t see our team scoring 300/3 or something similar. And when they score 250, it’s similar to 250/8. I believe it’s the coach’s job to help individuals and team with this problem, but I don’t think it’s happening, and Dave Whatmore needs to assist Bashar and the team now.

To solve the second problem, team selector needs to be right (they were wrong when the selected 4 opening batsmen and missed to include a good all round pacer/batsman) going forward. With Bashar’s form (batting and not captaincy), he needs to be replaced with a bowling and batting all rounder after the WC. But for now, since none of the Tamim’s opening partners is doing that well, can we try with Mashfiq opening with Tamim? This way, Reza can be # 7 batsman who can be the 6th bowler when needed.