Your advice for the Tigers - Constructive only!

[Zobair]

Its easy to rant and rave about how poor every one is and how every one of them should put to the firing squad - I exaggerate but you get the point! But this thread is an effort to see if we have anything positive to say that may help our team improve their game. Granted we are just ardent fans and not cricketers of any repute (at least I am) but the idea is to channel our frustration and disappointment in a positive direction.

What would be your message to each member of the team in one sentence?

Wise-cracks/Sarcasm NOT welcome!

Here are my inputs:

Jamie Siddons: Be patient and careful with how you display your frustration especially when on the "big screen" since it can hardly be morale-boosting for your charges in the middle of a game.

Md. Ashraful: I know you are trying really hard in the nets and hitting the ball well but the challenge for you is to build an innings so your goal should be survive a minimum of 20 overs in upcoming domestic matches.

Mashrafe Mortaza: Keep working on your fitness and learn to swing the new ball both ways.

Shahadat Hossain: Work on trying to bowl on a handkerchief outside off-stump!

Abdur Razzak: You are an excellent ODI/20-20 bowler but perhaps you can try to use the depth of the crease more to add further variety.

Farhad Reza: Bowling - same as Shahadat, Batting - improve on strike rotation.

Shakib Al Hasan: Bowling - nothing to offer here since you seem to be able to adjust pretty well, batting - work on your front-foot play.

Aftab Ahmed: Same as Ashraful.

Mahmudullah Riad: Bowling - be more positive/confident, slow things down a bit and flight the ball more, Batting - gotta learn how to rotate the strike and not get bogged down for maiden overs.

Tamim Iqbal: Learn how to take singles off good balls!

Nazimuddin: Same as Tamim/Riad.

Dhiman Ghosh: Improve footwork, rotate strike and keep working hard on your keeping.

S Nafees: Keep working on your fitness and agility and perhaps not go as hard at the ball.

Zunaid Sidiqqui: Open up your stance a little bit more to bowlers bowling across you.

Raqibul Hasan: Perhaps you can minimize your motions with the bat when waiting for the ball to be delivered?

Syed Rasel: Got to work harder on your shoulders to add that extra yard or two of pace and with your movement both ways you will be lethal.

Team as a whole: Keep your chin up and work through the wrinkles that are bound to occur when you have a heady mix of youth/inexperience, new coach and new coaching methods.

Your turn!

[Shobha]

something needs to be done about their bowling

BTW who is the bowling coach??

[pocha]

You tell me that they dont know all these. If yes, they should n't be playing international cricket then.

It simple they just dont learn even after being told all these words 10000 times.

[Zunaid]

Zobair - that post has all the hallmarks of a BC article. Care to expound on it a bit - or augment it with comments that will inevitably follow in this thread? Let me know.

[arafath79]

Only advice is to improve domestic cricket structure with gym, sporting wickets, bowling machine. good coach and trainer. The current BD players would not be that effective and the current players will not help Bangladesh to become a world beaten side. Most probably they will surprise the big guns and steal the win from them like they did under Whatmore's coaching period. They need to groom some young stars proprly before they bring in to the national squad.

For the cureent team:

1) Kick Ashrafool out of the team forever.
2)Don't allow Aftab to take his wife with him in any tour. He needs to keep himself fit and strong.
3) Zunaid is not a good ODI player.
4)Nazim Uddin should play instead of Ash.
5) Bangladeshi bowlers (MAshrafe, Shahadat) should learn how to bowl fast and consistently maintain goodl ine with minimum speed of 135 kmp and make it up to 140 kmp but the length should be right.
6)Tamim and Sakib are playing all right at the moment.
7) Rajjak needs to learn how to do variation like Vettori.

OH ! That's it.

[Eshen]

Siddons: Mate, I don't think you are good enough to be the head coach of an international team. BCB should promote Sujon as the national team manager (like a real team manager, not an administrative manager), and keep Siddons as a batting coach.

Ashraful: Please give up captaincy and concentrate on your batting.

[Russell2k7]

Look here is the deal: can a kinder garden student solve calculus without learning add and subtraction? No. Bangladesh should pull out from Test cricket like Zim and start playing other top teams A team or in First Class matches. That way they will learn the game better. You cannot solve harder problems without going through solving easier problems. Plain and simple. Oh and another thing is that this joke about Bangladesh having talents must stop! This is actually the very first step.

[Zobair]

Dr. Z! Sounds good. Lets see what comments our members offer over the next couple of days and then I could incorporate them into an article over the course of the week. Though I must say the initial responses are NOT what I was looking for.

People! The idea is to offer something positive to the players preferably on an individual basis i.e. speak directly to them as if you were giving advice to your own BROTHER/SON/favourite NEPHEW.

[al-Sagar]

play simple.

dont take any pressure

and enjoy

[djnaved]

Jamie Siddons: go back to australia, we don't need you anymore

Md. Ashraful: go back to 3rd division cricket league, i hope u can score double hundreds

Mashrafe Mortaza: learn how to swing the ball both sides, use variations, in batting try to stay at the crease for a long time

Shahadat Hossain: learn not to give short ball all the time,ball outside the off-
stump

Abdur Razzak: don't try to put more pace in ur bowling, u can be a superb batsman, plz work on ur batting skills

Farhad Reza: Bowling - same as Shahadat, Batting - improve on strike rotation.

Shakib Al Hasan: Bowling - nothing to offer here since you seem to be able to adjust pretty well, batting - work on your front-foot play.

Aftab Ahmed: Same as Ashraful.

Mahmudullah Riad: Bowling - be more positive/confident, slow things down a bit and flight the ball more, Batting - gotta learn how to rotate the strike and not get bogged down for maiden overs.

Tamim Iqbal: Learn how to take singles off good balls! and learn how to hit a six by not going down the wicket

Nazimuddin: learn how to take singles, it will definitely help

Dhiman Ghosh: Improve footwork, rotate strike

S Nafees: Keep working on your fitness and agility and perhaps not go as hard at the ball. improve footwork, improve ur shot selection

Zunaid Sidiqqui: change ur batting stance, improve ur shot selection.

Raqibul Hasan: u r the best single taking players after ash, try to be more aggresive

Syed Rasel: Got to work harder on your shoulders to add that extra yard or two of pace and with your movement both ways you will be lethal.

[WarWolf]

My first advice is for the govt

• Please change the management in BCB. These guys hardly know any thing about cricket. Hire some professionals who have experience in the business world and have cricketing background.
• Please make sure that the BCB is transparent enough as an organization which deals with a lot of money.

Advice for the BCB

• We need a change in the selection committee. These guys are not fit for it. They don't have any cricketing sense at all. Being an x-player doesn't necessarily make you a good selector.
• Finalize a long term well planned selection policy. Make sure that no player with at least 5 years of experience in first class cricket gets a call in the national team camp. Minimum criteria for getting a call is having minimum averages of 35 in both first class and list A matches. Minimum number of matches must be 40 for first classes and 50 for list A matches. We cannot expect someone, who has below 30 average in domestic cricket, suddenly flushing in international arena.
• The team lacks experience in terms of age. Only one player is above 25 years and he crossed that mark a few months back. Nobody is there who can take responsibilities in tough times. We must bring back some senior cricketers.
• Install fast bouncy pitches all over the country. This is must for upgrading the standards of the batsmen and the bowlers.
• Arrange foreign regular tours for academy and A teams.
• Communicate with cricket boards of other test playing countries like England, Australia, NZ, SA to arrange placement of our players in their local leagues.

Advice for the Players

• Try to set a value for your wickets and your deliveries. Make sure that the opponents must work hardest to get your wickets or make runs of your deliveries.
• Respect the local leagues. Try to be serious. If you are not serious here, you won't be able to be serious at international level too.

Advice for the Fans

• Keep your expectations low for next couple of years. Don't fly too high on one or two Eid occasions a year. Don't be too much pessimistic either.
• Continue supporting Bangladesh cricket and keep on visiting BC.

[arafath79]

Originally Posted by offstump
play simple.

dont take any pressure

and enjoy

Yes enjoy the game !! No matter what ?? Enjoy like Ashrafool !!! The ways he was showing his teeth in the 3rd ODI.

[desirocker]

Originally Posted by Russell2k7
Look here is the deal: can a kinder garden student solve calculus without learning add and subtraction? No. Bangladesh should pull out from Test cricket like Zim and start playing other top teams A team or in First Class matches. That way they will learn the game better. You cannot solve harder problems without going through solving easier problems. Plain and simple. Oh and another thing is that this joke about Bangladesh having talents must stop! This is actually the very first step.

kothagula kharap bollen nai russel mamu

[arafath79]

Gordon was right. He adviced BCB not to apply for test status so early and that's one of the important fact that he got kicked out from the national team as a coach. I felt sorry for him.

[Spitfire_x86]

Originally Posted by Russell2k7
Look here is the deal: can a kinder garden student solve calculus without learning add and subtraction? No. Bangladesh should pull out from Test cricket like Zim and start playing other top teams A team or in First Class matches.

Result = Death of cricket in Bangladesh

We're probably not meant to be good in Cricket (in fact, any sports in general), and maybe we should try living with that. Afterall, not everything grows in every country. We can't grow many fruits, we are still living despite that :S

[meazz1]

What I have seen so for of your selectors are the fast and quick decisions of dropping a player and bringing in a new player in a drop of a dime.

we need to stick to players and play them for a long time.
Cricket is a game of uncertainty and a player needs to adopt themselves to the game. if we want a team that is experienced, we need to let them spend time.

Many many times, experience is much more important than skills. If we stick to Dhiman, we need to give him time to play his game, when he needs guidance, we give him that and give him also the opportunity to apply that.

I thought Mushy had done a superb job behind the stumps in the WC and needed more time in the first class arena to learn and enriched his career.

[Russell2k7]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86
Result = Death of cricket in Bangladesh

We're probably not meant to be good in Cricket (in fact, any sports in general), and maybe we should try living with that. Afterall, not everything grows in every country. We can't grow many fruits, we are still living despite that :S

For us fans yes. But honestly the only thing that will bring death of cricket in Bangladesh is this type of performances on a frequent basis. We still have tri series, tour to Aus and SA, it will be very tough, but lets wait a bit more and see how our players perform. If we get blown away in those matches it will certainly not help our cause.

[al Furqaan]

the way ash batted in the 5th ODI, i watched his entire innings, was the way batting is supposed to be: don't take risks, take a lot of singles, and when you play aerial shots, make sure you clear the infield or hit in a vacant lot. and he did that. the catch from misbah was a super catch, which 99 times out of 100 would have been a 4 and not out. however, it seems that every ash dismissal is due to someone taking a blinder and that is unacceptable. ashraful and the rest of boys still do not understand the honor it is to play Test cricket. drop them from the squad for an entire series is the only way. not from a match here and there.

aftab was out of the test side for a while, and as a result his test batting has improved. he still feels irresponsible in ODIs because he has a free ride there. kick him out. if we have to lets bring rajin, alok, nafees iqbal, back. they can't do any worse than what we have here.

of course those guys are the stop gappers while we try to rectify the mental problems of our batting lineup.

tamim and sakib where the only ones who did their jobs admirably, and riyad too.

junaid is still young, but ash, aftab really need to be disciplined.

the bowling i don't worry about because they put their 100% effort in each game, barring the rare meltdown.

[WarWolf]

Advice for All the Tigers
Please bare in mind that you won't be able to perform a good play in the stage if you didn't do good in the rehearsal.

Junaid, my brother I know you age a good player. That doesn't mean that you don't have to work hard to get success. Look at your longer and shorter version records. Having 27.18 in first class and 25.26 in list A doesn't look good at all. Try to improve them at least by 15 in next 2 years.

Tamim, our national nephew, please bear in mind that the only way to score is not hitting big sixes and fours. There are times when you can score without taking any risk by playing with soft hands. Probably you would like to review your problems with big shots against spinners. The way you get out against spinners near the rope doesn't look good at all.

Aftab, my boy, are you having any kind of personal problems? If yes, then why not taking a break and have a good trip to some beautiful place? It would help you re-concentrate in your game. You need to stop playing across the line. How may times would you get out this way?

Ashraful, you are one of the reasons for which so many people in Bangladesh follow cricket. Please try to remember that words are never good enough. The only way to convince other about your effort is to perform. So shut your mouth off where it is un-necessary to open it. No advice for you is necessary at all. Work hard, inshallah you will get the reward. You might be interested to check the advice given for Junaid. It may help you as well.

Nazimuddin, You are not getting runs. It's common in the early days. Continue working hard. You will get the reward inshallah. Probably you need to work a little bit more to learn finding gaps in the off-side.

Shahriar Nafees, you know the dark hours are not forever. You are a good player. Due to some technical problems you are not getting runs against big opponents. You need really work hard to overcome your problem in playing those moving balls outside the off-stamp. Try to overcome footwork problem facing the sharp incoming deliveries. Siddons is the best guy there to help you about it.

[cricket_dorshok]

Make accountable every single one involved in BD cricket for their activities (BCB, Selectors, Coaches, Players) and take appropriate measure accordingly.

[Rabz]

Only constructive thing i can say at this moment:

Failure is the pillar of success.

We have soooo many pillars that we are running out of grounds.
Time to build on it.

[Rifat]

WarWolf, you seem like the type of selector we need brilliant advice

[Rifat]

another advice,

we are not a team who are used to playing cricket every month... we are the team who needs tremendous improvement on everything... the re are things we need to work from scratch, like how to respect yourseld, and come to realize when a match is lost the best thing you can do is play in such a way which will benefit you and the team.


try english county cricket, perchance those guys will show us how to play cricket "the standard way"

[thebest]

Here are my inputs:

Jamie Siddons: Always remember that you are handling some children. Please don't tell again that we do not expect to beat any big boy soon. Please retract that. It feels like they already surrendered against the big boy before the first ball was bowled. Also don't over praise. Then they would think that they have already achieves. Act like a parent of teenager. Soft but firm also remember our players are not Australian or the team can be molded into NZ. Pls use specialist.

Md. Ashraful: Please resign as captain. While batting forget about everything. Just concentrate on the next ball. Forget about captaincy, pressure to score run, pressure as being the premium batsman of the team
For God's sake enjoy the game. It seems to me at the moment you are not enjoying. Come back home and do not touch the bat, watch cricket for a week at least.

Mashrafe Mortaza: What happened to your bouncer and those incisive cutter.
Batting -stop premeditated shot. Remember the way you score using good cricketing shot.

Shahadat Hossain: Try to learn from Rasel how to use new ball. Use short stuff as surprise delivery not as stock delivery.

Farhad Reza: Please let the management know that you are not a opening bowler. After NZ I think you lose some pace. Please regain those.
Batting - power hitting is not everything.

Shakib Al Hasan: batting - learn where is your off stump. I feel sometime you are chasing the ball well outside off stump

Aftab Ahmed: I know you are undone three times by the umpire. Please go back to the things which bring you in the national team. Then integrate Siddon's suggestion. It seems to me you are trying to change your game completely.

Mahmudullah Riad: Batting - learn to rotate Bowling - ?.

Dhiman Ghosh: WK -Improve footwork, watch the ball till it settle in your gloves Batting: rotate strike, Go to Gym for muscle building and for the time being learn some percentage shot.

S Nafees: Same as Sakib.

Rasel: Don't be dishearthen. **** Happens

Team as a whole: Work on your fielding. I alarmed by the drop of quality of fielding as a unit.

Junaid/Raqib/Nazim - I did not see your batting much. But try to enjoy the game

Team Management: Stop dependency on spin. Too much LAS at the moment in the team. Please let an XI play for three match at a trot. And players should know from the beginning they should be evaluated after three match.

BCB: stop bringing player from u19 to national team. Allow foreigners to play in NCL. Improve quality of pitch. Ideally Six NCL team have six different types of wicket. for example Ctg may have seaming wicket; Khulna pacers paradise; Dhaka bouncy wicket; Sylhet low bouncy wicket; Rajshai Dust Bowl; Barisal So called patta wicket

[Bengali Bum]

We're not athletes (BD people in general).. too small for any sports.
Bangladesh needs to stop playing cricket all together.
so people like me will not loose sleep over some morons who fail miserably every time.

by the way, Horse jockey wud be a good sports for us. lol.