BD continues to improve

[cluster11]

BD currently stand 7th in overall T20 game history. I think this is a fairly accurate given the recent T20 World Cup results and number of games played. The current standing is as follows:

1. India (78%)
2. Pakistan (77%)
3. Srilanka (62%)
4. South Africa (60%)
5. Australia (54%)
6. New Zealand (50%)
7. Bangladesh (38%)
8. Zimbabwe (33%)
9. West Indies (30%)
10. England (27%)
11. Kenya, Scotland (0%)

Full stat in: http://stats.cricinfo.com/twenty20wc...ds/283307.html

BD had a 1-4 record in the toughest schedule of all teams. BD was the only team in super eight which didn't face a lower ranked team in all it's matches. Aftab was 9th in most runs, Zunaid 8th highest innings, Sakib was 11th in best bowling figure, Razzak 9th in most economic and Mushfiq 3rd in most dismissals. If Riad held on to Mashrafee's catch in the last game I feel BD would beat Pakistan and even further imrpove this stat.

This is the first time in BD history (or any team outside the top eight) that it progressed past prelimenary stage in two consecutive world cup tournament. I think its also the first time BD has 3 wins (so far) against higher ranked teams in a single year.

Like Australia, Srilanka and others BD also will have to figure out how to overcome there T20 weaknesses. Given the nature of the format, I feel BD will make faster progress in this type than ODI and Test. I think overall this has been the best year in BD's short cricketing history and I hope they retain most of this very young team together (even if they lose the next 2-3 series) to allow them to mature and set there eyes on the next T20 and then the WC2011.

Go Bangladesh!!

[cricket_king]

Perhaps we should take a look at Bangladesh's opposition - kenya, zimbabwe and west indies. That's pretty insignificant compared to the likes of other teams.

[zainab]

Cluster 11 said:

BD had a 1-4 record in the toughest schedule of all teams. BD was the only team in super eight which didn't face a lower ranked team in all it's matches.

I agree with you wholeheartedly here. All the other teams had an easy pass playing lower ranked teams than themselves, especially in the qualifying stage.
Bangladesh had to face West Indies and South africa in the first group. That was the biggest hurdle of all. I knew that they had beaten SA, but they had never beaten the Windians/also the Windians had huge hitters and I felt they would amass a huge score against BD which they might not have been able to defend, especially the way they batted at Wanderers with Chris Gayle going beserk. But after SA beat them, I was very doubtful about BD progressing to the super 8 stage.
Anyhow, that day I woke up with a positive feeling and felt that Ashraful and his boys will give their best performance. I also felt that this was the day that Ash will show his rare brilliance with the bat.
When i saw the next group BD was placed in to progress to the semi final,, I felt that they only had one chance and that was against Pakistan. I suspected that Australia and SL would choke these lads and indeed this happened. after seeing SL's performance against the OZ giving them catching practise, I had to reassess that BD young batsmen did better against the mighty Aussies.
They also did well to restrict SL's score and there the bowlers troubled these experienced batsmen a lot. I think Jayawardena was relieved when he was dismissed.
On the whole, our young boys did not fail badly, when you really analyse that this was the youngest team, most of them under 25, a few teenagers. Commentators commented on the youthfullness and inexperience of this team, but still felt that they have the talent to become better and therefore win more games against better ranked teams than themselves.
They went to SA, had great exposure, was popular, because everyone liked this very young team with their young captain. I heard Graeme Smith say that Bangladesh has a brilliant side in the post match interview. Hopefully, as Ash pointed out, that it was a great learning experience. They now have to practice seriously and believe in themselves like India and Pakistan and Inshallah, they will become better.

[Fazal]

Sure this is a pretty young team and it was a great learning experience (as Ash pointed out). No argument there. But the real question is what they are learning, or are they learning at all? Are they picking up good stuff from their mistakes or BAD stuff by repeating their mistakes?

And if you see the progression in the tournament... it does't give us a good feeling. Actually the game against the WI was the best one... after that... thinkgs start falling apart in the batting and fielding side.

[cluster11]

One responder mentioned BD won against Kenya, Zimbabwe, West Indies. Same is true for the other countries in that ranking. England for example, only won against Zimbabwe and lost 4 in a row. Srilanka only beat NZ among significant opponents. So I don't understand the point.

And the other responders point about progression is debatable. BD played WI and beat them. Then faced SA, Aus, SL and Pak which are 4 out of top 6 team in T20 world cup. So losing all 4 were expected. Even the margin of defeat is interesting (SL lost by 10wkts to Aus with a lower score than BD). I would say BD had 2 good games out of the 4 losses and for a young team like this who could barely put up a fight agains the same teams 2 years ago this is a vast improvement. If it took SL 10 years and others longer to get to the level of the big boys I don't understand why BD is being scrutinized so harshly when our first major success was only in 2005 and have been improving since then.

I clearly rememebr how Srilanka used to be the bashing boy of everybpody in late '80s, West Indies scored a record win against them one time. And BD used to struggle for a semi-final spot against in the ICC associates at the time. Going year by year, BD have had terrible record from 2000 till 2003. From that point on every single year our cricket team has improved this year being the best. The risk in constant criticism after every single match is that we don't keep a coherent team for at least couple of years and do not get to the maturity we need. I really hope this team will be able to withstand all the unfair criticism and continue doing what its doing.

[Rumz_01]

Finally something positive! Its nice to hear that despite all the negativity about losing, Bangladesh seem to be an improving side! They play well in some and not so well in others but, they 'seem' to be improving so that has got to be a good sign rite?

[zainab]

Originally Posted by cluster11
One responder mentioned BD won against Kenya, Zimbabwe, West Indies. Same is true for the other countries in that ranking. England for example, only won against Zimbabwe and lost 4 in a row. Srilanka only beat NZ among significant opponents. So I don't understand the point.

And the other responders point about progression is debatable. BD played WI and beat them. Then faced SA, Aus, SL and Pak which are 4 out of top 6 team in T20 world cup. So losing all 4 were expected. Even the margin of defeat is interesting (SL lost by 10wkts to Aus with a lower score than BD). I would say BD had 2 good games out of the 4 losses and for a young team like this who could barely put up a fight agains the same teams 2 years ago this is a vast improvement. If it took SL 10 years and others longer to get to the level of the big boys I don't understand why BD is being scrutinized so harshly when our first major success was only in 2005 and have been improving since then.

I clearly rememebr how Srilanka used to be the bashing boy of everybpody in late '80s, West Indies scored a record win against them one time. And BD used to struggle for a semi-final spot against in the ICC associates at the time. Going year by year, BD have had terrible record from 2000 till 2003. From that point on every single year our cricket team has improved this year being the best. The risk in constant criticism after every single match is that we don't keep a coherent team for at least couple of years and do not get to the maturity we need. I really hope this team will be able to withstand all the unfair criticism and continue doing what its doing.

You have analysed this 20/20 performance very well.

Bangaldesh has improved a lot in their ODI's since 2003 world cup, with this year being the best.They can beat better teams than themselves, they have nearly done it so many times, but their batting lets them down. This is their failure, and if they improve, we will see more wins.

It is their test match performance that is way below standard. Somehow, no one seems to know how to tackle this problem, and it is sad to see them as the bashing boys in Test cricket where opposing teams post all these rediculous records against them. Murali has bagged most of his test wickets off Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

Hopefully, they will have a better showing against the Kiwis.

[Electrequiem]

You can find positives in everything.

You can find negatives in everything, too.

What really matters is the standard deviation between the two, which is singlehandedly decided by the boys.

[Baundule]

Moving from the 2nd position to the 7th must be an improvement

[rabeya]

yea thats like a team

[cluster11]

We were 2nd after playing just 1 game against Zimbabwe (ranked 10th in ODI). We became 7th after playing Pakistan, Kenya, West Indies, South Africa, Srilanka and Australia (all except Kenya being above us). So I will definitely call it an improvement. Also just looking at the stats from the last 3 years it can be clearly seen BD has slowly moved up in the ODI rating from 11th to 9th with highest rating point at present. At the beginning of 2004 BD was at 11th (behind Kenya, Zim with 0 points). Today they are at 9th (with 48 points ahead of Ireland, Zim and Kenya) and also this is the first year they beat 3 test teams (Ind,SA,WI ) in any form of cricket within a single year. Of course it's pointless to discuss this with someone with lack of knowledge of BD's cricket history. So I'm just letting the stats do the talking themselves. http://www.icc-cricket.com/icc/odi/archive.html

Also I disagree that you can make a negative or a positive outlook out of any result. You can surely take positive/negative points out of a match regardless of loss or win, but a result can always be compared relative to other teams' scores and statistics and history. Based on that I would say BD has consistently improved on a yearly basis.

[cluster11]

I agree with Zainab that Test cricket is a different headache for BD. They are well below even Zimbabwe in ratings and their performance so far has been very discouraging. That said, it is true that BD doesn't get much chance to play Tests. I would even encourage a 3-match series against Zimbabwe if we cant find anybody else. But the boys have to learn how to stay at the crease for long time.

[zainab]

Quote:
"The boys have to learn how to stay at the crease for a long time"

This is the problem. They still feel that test matches are a 50 over game, and think that time is running out. They become restless after 5 overs and become impatient when the scoring is low. They have to be able to concentrate and stay at the crease for a long time even if the scoring is low. When they overcome this, then they will be able to carry a test match into the fourth day at least and not lose by an innings.
They are playing against teams and players who have had many more years of playing test matches than them.

[cricket_king]

Originally Posted by zainab
Quote:
"The boys have to learn how to stay at the crease for a long time"

This is the problem. They still feel that test matches are a 50 over game, and think that time is running out. They become restless after 5 overs and become impatient when the scoring is low. They have to be able to concentrate and stay at the crease for a long time even if the scoring is low. When they overcome this, then they will be able to carry a test match into the fourth day at least and not lose by an innings.
They are playing against teams and players who have had many more years of playing test matches than them.

I partly agree you with here. They do become restless after 5 overs or so and start looking for boundaries. However I wouldn't say that they feel test matches are 50 over games, and they certainly don't feel as if time is running out. To me it seems more as if they just don't know how to approach the situation. They know they have time in their hands, and they know that it's not a ODI. They just simply don't know how to play test, and I am desperately awaiting on a coach who can change this.

[SS]

Yeap we improved in Corruption ranking!!!

[Rifat]

truth be told...

i am very proud of this Bangladesh team for their progress in this T20. because given their potential and ability and style of play, they got exactly what they deserved, nothing more, nothing less.

off course, we make mistakes, and we will continue to make them because change doesn't happen overnight, change happens gradually and through repetetive results.

look at us at 2001 and look at us now, we have improved a lot, havn't we? of course we still drop catches and our stamina is no where close to perfect, and we still need to find a balanced way to approach cricket, especially in the longer format of the game. our Batsmen need to forget about their hidden holdback negative psychology and concentrate on how to properly bulid up a solid career, each and individually. they just need to... simply said, FOCUS, and FOCUS HARD. many many examples has been set by Banlgadeshi so called "talented batsmen" already, that their names are mentioned in this forum so many times, it is sad and not even close to comedy.

20/20 is a format of the game where onr minor mistake changes evrything, unlike test/ODI, i am not going to blame the boys on not meeting the demands on certain expectations of certain fans, but i do blame them for their lack of toughness and their ability to see themselves alongside with the legends of the game, they can reach it too, we have some potential future legends of the game on our own backyard.

rankings mean nothing, only it is used to measure how your next future opponent takes you seriously or lightly.

all they need to remember is that there is and there was and there will always will be support for this team no matter what, so keep up the good work and work on correcting mistakes and concentrate on winning more matches.

[cricket_king]

Originally Posted by SS
Yeap we improved in Corruption ranking!!!

Not really....we still had the same corruption points...other nations just became worse.

[FagunerAgun]

Originally Posted by Electrequiem
You can find positives in everything.

You can find negatives in everything, too.

What really matters is the standard deviation between the two, which is singlehandedly decided by the boys.

Hehehe khub bhalo bolechhen, dada.