A Radical Proposal

[Blah]

Earlier in another thread I proposed how BD should prepare the first test.
I suggested that BD should concentrate more on batting than anything else.
As if it wasn't obvious enough to everyone else, to prove me and everyone else right BD cricket team has once again showed a very dismal performance in batting.

So, I have come up with something even more extreme, with even more importance in batting for the team.

The players that I am choosing are not all in the 14 member named by BCB and are very less likely that BCB would allow to play in any recent cricket event, but nevertheless I believe this is how the selectors should approach when selecting their team.

Regular Striking Bowlers:

Taposh Baishya
Mohammad Rafique
Masrafe Mortaza
Manjurul Islam Rana


Part Time Bowlers:

Naimur Rahman Durjoy
Aftab Ahmed
Mohammad Ashraful

In test match 90 overs are bowled in a day. Four bowlers are more than enough to share 90 over among them in a test match, as australia does themselves.
However, to ease the pressure on batsmen the captain should utilize his part-time bowlers more often. After all, even with our full strength bowling it is very unlikely we will bowl a good team out in a short period of team. So might as well put the pressure with seven differant bowlers.

Batting Line up:

Nafis Iqbal
Jabed Omar
Habibul Bashar
Aftab Ahmed
Mohammad Ashraful
Naimur Rahman Durjoy
Manjurul Islam Rana
Dhiman Gosh
Mohammad Rafique
Tapash Baishya
Masrafe Mortaza

In this way we have EIGHT 'good' batsmen, with a preety decent amount of bowling attack. We have two medium fast bowlers, three spinners, and one slow midium fast bowler.

The reason why I wanted to remove Pilot from the team is that, right now he is the only payer in the team who is absolutely sure that he will not be removed in any way.
he has more assurance than Habibul bashar himself. Being the only wicket keeper in the team, and the fact that he has been recently promoted to vice captain has boosted his invincibility so much that it has effected his game. Catches are being droped and he has never been really an impressive batsmen, though he has recently scored a century, and average of 19.60 is not really something to brag about. Dhiman Gosh on the other hand is a much complete batsmen and does keeping, he adds depth to the batting; and besides when is a better time than now to train a new wicket keeper?

Obviously our strategy should not be to bowl opposition out, but to bat out more time in the middle. And by putting more emphasis on the batting we can achieve this goal.
Even if it means playing 8 batsmen.

Blah.

[Fazal]

Khaise !!!!

Not only you dropped Rajin. You also dropped Pilot.

You want a 3rd World War in this board?

[rassel]

Way too radical blah. I could understand rajin exclusion, but pilot. No. You ought to reconsider your plan. He is not going anywhere anytime soon.

[acbizz]

drop everyone except rafiq and masrafi...........others are good for nothing...
most of them dont perform and a few perform after every 4/5 tests......

[Blah]

Rajin is not even considered by the team for the second team. Not to mention his miserable performance. We have to give performance more credit than emotions. Anyone who doesn't perform consistently has to make room for someone else, even if it's habibul bashar. We won't be talking about his century against WI any more if he scores six ducks in a row. And that as a professional team in a professional sport should understand.

Everyone has a emotional feeling towards pilot. It's understandable. Him (and rafique) being the only player still in the national team since god knows how long. But he is not really an exceptional player. And we can actually put more batting depth by replacing him with someone who is more proficient in batting. Diman Gosh is the first person that came into my mind.

Blah

[bourny3]

I dont mind your team. But Naimur Rahman wont get a game i dont think. He has fallen out of favour. I would like to see Dhiman in the team but there is no place for him as Pilot wouldnt get dropped. I like your thinking. Hopefully the board dont have to do these changes after winning this test. .oops:

[AsifTheManRahman]

yeah...way too radical. dropping mashud will be suicidal. will u drop tendulkar because he knows he has no chance of getting dropped and is performing bad at the same time?

you can't say anything about mashud just because he failed to perform in a single match. remember he has, and will save our butts on several occassions.

as for naimur rahman, i don't think it's a good idea, unless he performs really well in domestic cricket.

[AsifTheManRahman]

and dhiman shouldn't be brought into the team rightaway. he is not yet ready for international cricket.

[obernell]

wait and see, we will win a test very soon, rajin could be dropped, and mushfiq as well, other than that i wouldn't change any player.
it will take time, no matter how well u shuffle, u gotta give it time!!

[Blah]

I agree, maybe I was a bit off by suggesting removal of Pilot.

But I don't understand the comparison with tendulkar.
Tendulker performs well way above average, thats why he enjoys the certainity of staying in the team, which doesn't effect his playing level.

Pilot enjoys the certainity of staying in the team because he is famous, for whatever reason, not because of his performance, which seems to suffer because of this certainity.

Wicket keeper in most other test playing nations plays a much bigger role with bat, and ussually plays an essential part in their batting lineup. I can't say the same about pilot, and the fact that he has an average of 19.60 only proves my point.

Australia has Gilchrist who averages around 51, is an essential part of their batting lineup. And India, until recently played Rahul Dravid as weeket keeper to increase their batting depth with another batsman. When you have a wicketkeeper who is also a decent batsmen, it gives you more option to add bowlers, batsmen, or alrounder. It can only mean a good thing for the team.

pls don't say we don't have anyone to replace pilot.
We never loooked.

I don't understand how Pilot saved our butts.
We never won...

blah

[fab]

Originally posted by Blah
Four bowlers are more than enough to share 90 over among them in a test match, as australia does themselves.

Australia has Gilchrist who averages around 51, is an essential part of their batting lineup.

I don't understand how Pilot saved our butts.

1. You shouldn't compare us to Australia.
2. Pilot has saved us from utter humiliation numerous times.

How can you forget his contribution based on just the last two innings?!

[Blah]

1. You shouldn't compare us to Australia.
2. Pilot has saved us from utter humiliation numerous times.

How can you forget his contribution based on just the last two innings?!

1) I am not comparing us with Australia. I am pointing to the examples set by leading teams like australia and india. It's working for them to play specialized batsmen as wicketkeeper for the sake of the game, common knowledge tells me, chances are it will also work for us. Maybe not Dhiman, but someone else but definately someone else who can perform. It could also give a message to pilot that alternatives are being looked, which could inspire him to play better. Now pilot can drop catches left and right, and score no runs at all, and wake up tomorrow to play his game, because he knows there is no one there to replace him.

2) If being saved by humiliating defeat satisfies our content, than we might never see any win at all. Ones performance shouldn't be judged by their ability to save us from humiliating defeat, but their ability to bring us win.

A lost game by any margin, at the end of the day, is a lost game.

Cheers,
Blah

[billah]

Well thought out, blah, & supported by data.

However, the analysis is not skewed for Bangladesh level performance. Just take Pilot's average in the last 12 innings. You will see that he is beginning to get far better with the bat, compared to his previous 12, for example. These days he does well even under very difficult conditions. You see, it took our Rafiq a while to find his mettle, finally, the same is happening to Pilot also. All the experience & match practice is turning him into a solid, matured player. Frankly, these are the few years we will ride him worry free. That batting average of 19.60 is deceptive and does not tell the whole story & even that is pretty good from a wicketkeeper in Bangladesh context. Dhiman should not be considered at all at this point.

[Blah]

Just for the kicks I calculated the batting avg. of pilot for the last 12 games, obviously as expected, his lone century has boosted it somewhat.

I manually calculated it, didn't know if there is some of kind of filter to do it.

His total runs in the last 12 match is 498.
He played 24 innings, he was not out twice.
He had 4 ducks, 2 half century and 1 century.
AVG = R / (I-NO) ; that makes his avg :22.63
That's 3.03 better than his total average.

I don't know what to make out of it. It's certainly not exceptionally better, but yet better than his total avg.

Yet not conclusive enough to me. It doesn't convince me enough that he is not replaceable; he is as much replaceable as most of the top order batsmen, who either underperforms to their ability, or has been hyped about their ability in general.

Cheers,
Blah

[mahbubH]

What did Dhiman do in the national/international cricket so far? I do not think he scored any 50s in the ongoing premier so far? In last match Mohamedan selects Muktar Siddiki and my guess he is an wicketkeeper (plays for Biman or Brothers few years back) and Dhiman was not in the team. I might be wrong because I did not find the full scorecard of Mohamedan-City club match. But my point is Dhiman did not score many runs for his club this year then how can people consider him as a replacement of Pilot right now?

In the U19 tour to England last year, in several matches Mushfiqur Rahim kept wicket when Dhiman was in the 11 as a batsman only .... does not it say Mushfiqur Rahim is a better keeper than Dhiman?

Did Dhiman play national league yet?

[Blah]

I mentioned Dhiman, because I didn't know any other well known wicket keeper in bangladesh, as I don't follow the premiere leage as much as I would love to.

Later, I mentioned in one of my other post:
"Maybe not Dhiman, but someone else but definately someone else who can perform."

I believe we need a wicket keeper who can perform better than pilot in batting.
As pilot gets a default call up in the test matches, regardless of his performance. When he sees a rival, he will be competitive, and it will only bring the best out of him or his rival.

Cheers,
Blah

[oracle]

A good shot at lateral thinking, Blah, but the ground reality with all the backroom dealings in BD cricket has been omitted from the thinking. Sad to say this but a position in the team is still not based on pure performance. There are too many stories of it which are not worth mentioning here. The true miracle is the abundance of faith that people have on bd CRICKET . That is enough to wait and be patient for a bright future.

[Fazal]

I wished ChaCha had some of those diehard loyal fans like Rajin and Pilot have. Poor Chacha…

Edited on, December 15, 2004, 4:06 PM GMT, by Fazal.

[Blah]

I just hope, that "mamaluk" pilot and others makes some good score in the second test.

Cheers,
blah

[nasifkhan]

dont bring Dhiman here..... Let hin perform in the local league and then come to the international level.... We dont want another Alok Kapali.

[AsifTheManRahman]

yes, the analysis is not skewed to bangladesh's level of performance. by referring to tendulkar i meant that pilot is a regular performer in the bd side. yes, he doesn't have an avg of 50, but u can't throw him out because of a 19.61 avg - it's pretty good for a bangladeshi - look at the other platers' averages!

besides, why would you wanna replace pilot only? i'd say anyone who wants to replace pilot should also be looking at replacing the whole team

[nasifkhan]

currently there is no replacement for Pilot.....Not even a close replacement....

Dhiman can be seen as a future replacement ......but not now...

"Are ei cheler gaye ekhono to haddiy hoi nai.....kelbo ki dia"

[BD Tigers]

Just like the thread's title - it is a radical proposal. Everything was fine except for Pilot. Yes we can bring Mushfiq/Dhiman in ODIs slowley but shud still have Pilot in Tests. But i think there shud a understudy of Pilot in the team now. Dhiman/Mushfiqur both good bat with good hand. So hopefully they will come into the picture soon. But for next year or so - ITS ALL PILOT.

[Blah]

Thanks everyone for your input.
Yes, agreed that Pilot doesn't have any replacement now or anytime soon. Nevetheless, I believe a replacement is needed with a specialized batsmen ,who can perform behind the wicket, to add batting depth to the team.

Cheers,
Blah

[Huda]

mashud has saved our butts time and tiem again. he scored a century and held our innings in the west indies. he batted very well agaisnt nz , and in one days heasnt batted that badly. hes a solid player.