About time we rethink our 'wickets' ?

[sar2005]

Only thing that I think a bit strange where one of our batsman got a fifty. It means, if you were trying to stay a bit, runs were always there in the pitch. Mind you, the fifty was not a JO type one. Also I can see Struss and Voughn is playing actually very easily after getting the start or adjusting with the pitch.

[TheWatcher]

Originally Posted by sar2005
Only thing that I think a bit strange where one of our batsman got a fifty. It means, if you were trying to stay a bit, runs were always there in the pitch. Mind you, the fifty was not a JO type one. Also I can see Struss and Voughn is playing actually very easily after getting the start or adjusting with the pitch.

You are right on the money. There was nothing glorious about the way our batsmen got out today (on contrary to the colorful picture Rubu trying to portray), they just simply did not apply themselves.

[ammark]

Agent_Smith has pointed out the right thing. But just blaming the batsmen for getting out isnt doing any good.

Mushi was beaten for pace
Ashraful edged on a great delivery
Aftab going for the drive and getting edged off a ball that was meant to get him forward and in trouble.

I'm glad they faced these balls and hopefully they're learning from it. There really wasnt anyway to expect singles off the pacers. Most of Saquibs runs off the fast bowlers came from boundaries.. all great shots of bad balls.

[Rubu]

Originally Posted by ammark
Agent_Smith has pointed out the right thing. But just blaming the batsmen for getting out isnt doing any good.

Heard that nick after such a long time! Reminds me of old days.

For those of you do not know what he is talking about, it used to be my nick before i changed it to my name.

[Spitfire_x86]

Originally Posted by gatekeeper
While I do agree with Tehsin to a certain extent our batsmen still could've made a game out of it. Basha got out because he was shell shocked, Aftab got out the usual way-he either get out ct, at long-on/long-off or ct. behind. It seemed to me that only Tamim and Nafees were done in by the bounce. How difficult is it to see off the first 18/20 overs of the new ball? Sakib showed how to do it and he has very little experience in bouncy tracks.

Proof that you didn't watch the match.

[Spitfire_x86]

Originally Posted by TheWatcher
We know, we know, all that you and Spitty care is that whether your favourite players are in the team.

If they happen to be better players, then why not?

[TheWatcher]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86

If they happen to be better players, then why not?

The problem is that they are not, not always.

[Thirdman]

Sort of outdated, but on a similar line of thought from a previous post of mine...

http://www.banglacricket.com/alochon...195#post299195

Giving our fast bowlers a chance

It is true that our "typical sub-continental" conditions limit us to the extent that we cannot make fast and bouncy pitches like they have in Australia or somewhere else. Even if we could, our cricket decision makers would always make flat pitches for our home games, hoping our slow bowlers would reap the benefits, and of course, so that our batsmen can have an easier time in the middle.

But to reap the true benefits, you need to get some runs on the board. Our batsmen are unable to do that most of the times, and in reality, the visiting team reaps bigger benefits from the flat pitch, as Australia is doing right now - even their tail-ender is scoring maiden test century (okay, okay, he played well with straight bat and so on, but still he is and always will be a tail-ender). And two of our fine fast bowlers, deprived of getting any assistance from the pitch, are not quite able to do any real damage.

Now that we have a quality pace duo in the form of Mash and Shahadat (and we have more with Rasel and others), can’t we build fast-bowler friendly pitches for our home matches? I mean, how bad can it get? We scored 197 on a very very flat pitch that is considered to be a heaven for the batsmen. There are multiple examples of our low scoring in flat batting-heaven pitches before. If our batsmen cannot score runs, why deprive our capable bowlers with great consistency who can, with some assistance from the pitch, trouble even the world's leading batsmen?

Again, how worse can it get? We might score 167 instead on 197... but we may do worse than that on a flat pitch also.

And mind you, our batsmen have played the likes of McGrath and Gillespie (in his prime) *IN* Australia, and later in England - and they have played them well, in some cases. Those were not flat batting wickets either.

For our slow bowlers, I believe Rafique can trouble batsmen in any kind of pitch.

For once, we can be fair to our talented (and with better temperament, at least more than our batsmen) fast bowlers, and give them a chance to bowl on a fast-bowling pitch in home conditions, and see what they can do! We can even play 3 pacers in the team with Rafique (and may be a 5th one, why not!) taking care of the spin department.

I might be dreaming way ahead. Especially since there are no home matches in the near future.

But isn’t this worth the thought?

[roaring tigerz]

Todays batting was embarrassing. We were like lambs led to slaughter. The glaring deficiencies in all our batsmen's techniques were exposed. Except Ashraful and maybe Mushfiq, I cannot remember a single batsman getting out to a good ball.

You can blame the pitch and the conditions all you want. But team combined have played more than 700 ODIs all over the world. If you see tough conditions, you go to Plan B and look to surive. Except Sakib no one looked interested in fighting it out. Thats especially frustrating when you see how comfortably Mashrafee played once the pitch hasd eased up.

[akabir77]

I think WI sabotaged us. they knew if we win this game then England will be out like india with their fans so they wanted to make sure that doesn't happen...

[shane2k]

We will lose and we will win, question is how the result happened.

For today's match our second innings was something to be very proud of and this side of the game we are fully consistent and can rely on. The battings part is something we are still very much lagging. Consistency is not coming our way or may be we are not going there.

As the "New Guru" has said when the tone has shown the pitch is not in our favor, a little patience may have added some more run and our second innings would have got us the win for the day.

Hats off to Saqib to save the day for us, for our bowlers to shine.

It was fighting day overall. I hope mistakes will corrected and implemented in the next game.

[rio]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86

Proof that you didn't watch the match.

What makes you say that he didn't watch the match?

[gatekeeper]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86
Proof that you didn't watch the match.

By ct. behind I meant caught by either WK or slips. If you didn't understand that then you're not very bright or you yourself didn't watch the game.

[rio]

We need a few pitches that offer more bounce and pace in domestic cricket so that our players get a taste of bounce and pace sometimes.

But when Bangladesh plays at home we should always go with slow and low turning tracks. The English always prepare seaming pitches so that their seamers can swing around. The South Africans always make bouncy tracks to bounce out the opponents. The Indians also used to prepare turning pitches so that it aided their spinners.

The South Africans/English dont moan that they need turning tracks back in their country so that their batsmen develop the skill to counter the spinners. So we shouldn't be overly worried about that.

[rio]

btw, bouncy wickets are not at all sporting wickets cause they provide very little help to the spinner or for that matter batsmen with front foot based technique. A wicket where the ball seams around or a pitch that just helps the spinners are also not sporting tracks.

A sporting wicket's example would be the Sydney wicket which can be helpful for everyone (batsmen, spinner and the seamer).

[WarWolf]

All the 3 matches in Barbados clearly indicated to our weakness in real fast bouncy wicket. Our batsmen never been easy in this condition. TI was definitely uncomfortable and failed to deliver as he probably he seen such a pitch for the first time in his life. So no good to blame him. Saqib was comparatively comfortable because of his technique. But still he couldn't do much. Among others only Ash and Mushy were able to cope with the situation a bit.

This is evident that we need to have fast and bouncy wickets installed all over our country. Let's see how BCB reacts to this need.

[bengaltiger]

we can't always just wait out the new ball for the first 15 or 20 overs w/o losing wickets. we gotta attack the new ball from the very beginning or forget ever being no. 1 under all circumstances.

we need batsmen who can bat in these bounce and we need more fast bowlers like mash and rasel. it would have been great to have an extra fast baller in the mathc against WI.

[Sovik]

we need to have decent, sporting pitch. other wise we will fail on every occasion that we will play out side of sub continent

[Hatebreed]

It's very obvious. We desperately need more exposure to quick, bouncy pitches and plenty of practise, especially the batsmen. It's the only way we can improve and compete away from home. I also wish we had Steve Waugh as our specialist batting coach.

[ehteshamul]

Time and again we have seen that our batsmen is unable to come to terms with the uneven pace and bounce that they encounter when touring abroad in countries like Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and West Indies where fast bouncy pitches is pretty much a standard.

Why is BCB ignorant about it? How can they expect our boys to perform well in conditions which is alien to them? Even if they have the Best Coach they will not be able to overcome this. For this reason not only Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indian batsmen also fair poorly on pitches in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia.

We are also not blessed with any of our cricketers getting a chance to play in English county cricket which goes a long way to get conditioned in similar pitches.

One of the priorities of BCB was to hire Curators from either Australia, South Africa and make it mandatory for players to play local matches on those pitches and also ensure our cricket squad plays sufficient practice matches on those pitches before heading for tours

The initial period will be difficult. But with time they will adapt and become seasoned and perform far better. Siddons with his batting Coaching abilities should be able to assist our batsmen to get adjusted to it.

What do the readers think about it?

[Nafis_BD]

I think its a great point and definitely BCB should think about it as it's about time we get some better pitches. But then again our batsmen are all the same. They perform the same way at home with familiar conditions as they perform on away games with alien conditions. Though creating fast and bouncy pitches will help them improve but I still think there's more to it than that. Many of our batsmen are missing the basics and doing improvisations which is not bad but basics are the more important. Our batting has many flaws and I think we need to fix those first although the competetive pitches should help somewhat.

[sandpiper]

puran pechal abar suru hoise. ei gula sobaai jane. kintu karo kono mathabetha nai.

[Gowza]

all players playing for their national team have to play in alien environment, it's not just bangladesh. imo it's a mental issue, not sure what the overall team's attitude is but certainly ashraful's attitude negates progress. by that i mean when he plays in conditions he doesn't like then he blames a poor performance on the conditions. that tells me that rather than taking the conditions on as a challenge he kind of just says bugger it if i get out i get out and it's not really my fault it's the conditions fault.

i think you'll find most international players who play in conditions they don't like, take it on as a challenge to play well in those conditions. they knuckle down, get through it and more often than not still put up a decent performance, we don't see this from the BD national team that often.

obviously the domestic pitches do play a role, if they play domestically in tough conditions they'll understand them better but they still need to fix the attitude to really succeed.