Bye Bye Bangles

[paco]

This was posted on rec.sport.cricket by an English fan. Fairly sobering, but I agree with most things he said.

p.s. - the Title is what he used.

If the Bangles manage to win on Thursday, the following may be torn
up, but since it's unlikely that I'll be able to post by then (because
I'm about to go on holiday to Europe until the Tests get underway in
order to avoid any more odos, 20-20s and Bob Willis), here's a
farewell for them.

They're still a useless Test team. They're complete crap against fast,
short-pitched bowling with a first-class style slip cordon. Tests
against them are a waste of time for their opponents, except in so far
as they afford an opportunity for players who've been out of form to
regain some confidence and rhythm. How much the Bangles themselves
benefit from such mismatches is extremely debatable.

That said, it's worth pointing out that they have three players of
comparable ability to Test players from other countries. OK, I haven't
seen the new WI keeper, but Khaled Mashud would be a certain pick for
me ahead of Courtney Browne or Dinesh Karthik, and I wouldn't complain
if he were picked ahead of Geraint Jones or Mark Boucher. Mohammed
Rafique would be extremely useful to WI who don't have a decent
spinner of any description, South Africa would improve their team by
replacing Nicky Boje with him, and he'd make a much more convincing
backup spinner for England than Batty. I'd also guess that several
Test teams could find something useful for Mortaza to do.

But they will remember this tour for their odos, or, to be more
realistic, THAT odo. Having won a game against Pak which lots of
people think was fixed and one against an emerging players XI billed
as "India", they finally notched up a genuine odo win against a
full-strength side - and it happened to be the world champs. Cool.
Ashraful has been seriously impressive and Aftab Ahmed Chowdhury looks
like he's got the goods, and with the three mentioned before there's
the nucleus of a decent side. Since the two batsmen are only 19 or 20,
they have every chance of learning to play the longer form well too in
time.

The effect of THAT odo is significant. From now on, no team will make
any more concession to the Bangles than to rest a senior bowler who
needs to conserve his energy for a stiffer game in two days' time.
Nobody else will want to get caught napping as Australia were.

The other two mentionable players they currently have are Habitual
Basher and Javed Belim. From what I've seen of them on this tour,
neither of them are really international class players. But, several
counties or States could find a berth for Javed Belim if they are in
need of a plodding opener for four-day cricket and a lot would be
quite happy to have Bashar in their dodo teams. The rest of the squad
are far too young and inexperienced to be worth talking about.

In my view, this tour has enhanced Bangladesh's reputation. There are
obvious signs of progress, especially in the one-day arena, and some
players of significance are emerging and performing fairly regularly.
Given that the median age of the team is 21, there's considerable
scope for improvement over the next few years. Although they aren't as
good as Sri Lanka were at the same stage of their international
career, I think we can at least see that they will eventually be a
competitive side just as Sri Lanka became.

To their credit, they've borne their thrashings fairly bravely and
have made the right noises about being disappointed with their own
performances and resolved to do better next time - and even in the
Tests it was noticeable that they were beginning to learn to try and
hang around instead of knocking the cover off every ball, so they are
advancing incrementally.

So, thanks to Bangladesh for coming. With the constraints of the ICC's
Future Tours programme relaxed now, they probably won't be back for
about six or seven years, by which time it might well be worth a lot
more people's while than this series was for England.

[Sauron]

Wow! This guy gets cricket!! Some of his analysis might seem ruthless, but only because he is looking at it from a fresh angle. I cannot argue with anything he said except this line -

How much the Bangles themselves
benefit from such mismatches is extremely debatable.

I think that is the only wrong statement in his whole piece. Again, that is understandable from someone who has not been following BD cricket day in and day our for the last 10 years.

I strongly believe that BD team has learned more from this tour than any other tour before. And we could learn so much from this tour only because we had the IND and ZIM series in your recent memories. Playing with the giants will let us learn what makes a giant and we will be one of them soon.

[Zephaniah]

It would do more good to our players to know where they stand.

Edited on, June 28, 2005, 3:47 PM GMT, by Zephaniah.
Reason: duh

[Mahmood]

His whole analysis is solely based on scorecards. He is not looking for technick, or skill, rather judging players based on their performence from one single series.

[newbie]

Originally posted by Sauron
I cannot argue with anything he said except this line -

I think that is the only wrong statement in his whole piece.

I agree with Sauron... while it might be "useless" for the opponents, the test experience has done a great deal of good for BD.

[RazabQ]

Nah, i think he watched the game. Rafique didn't take too many wickets, nor did Mashrafee. They gave runs too. Yet he thinks they are decent - you only get that from watching.

[TheWatcher]

This is really a signficant win for us-

The effect of THAT odo is significant. From now on, no team will make any more concession to the Bangles than to rest a senior bowler who needs to conserve his energy for a stiffer game in two days' time. Nobody else will want to get caught napping as Australia were.

There you go, we are learning-

... it was noticeable that they were beginning to learn to try and hang around instead of knocking the cover off every ball, so they are advancing incrementally.

[shaoun]

i thought masrafee played well in this tour. he didnt take much wicket but he gave batsmans trouble. we seen in few matches where opening batsman from opposite team would play defensive when masrafee is bowling and go all out with his partners (taposh and nazmul). this didnt help masrafee either. shoiab akthar said that fast bowler needs good partner in the other end which i completely agree with. if masrafees opening partners were able to bowl well i am sure masrafee would have taken more wickets. and for rafique i dont think english pitch were suitable for spinners specially on test matches.
bangladesh will contiue to play test matches because we deserve to play. we are improving rapidly and becomeing a giant killers. and within next few years i am confident that we can become one of the giants in international cricket.

[shaoun]

its not bangles its bangladesh. get your name right first before making a statment.

[yaseer]

Originally posted by RazabQ
Nah, i think he watched the game. Rafique didn't take too many wickets, nor did Mashrafee. They gave runs too. Yet he thinks they are decent - you only get that from watching.

I agree......his comments were not only from scorecards.

[bd4life]

fair enough. Hopefully in 7 years someone from this forum will be able to offer advice to the English players on how to survive a trip to Bangladesh.

[IanW]

I pretty much agree with what he's saying, except I rate Ashraful as getting a run in most sides ... run a ball hundreds against Australia dont grow on trees, and then following it up with an even faster 90 against England would get you a spot in most sides I think.

He;s right that the squad is young and inexperienced ... and thats why it was a good thing that they went to England.

I'm expecting the same 'jump' in the next 6 months as they got from the Australia tour, which they followed up by nearly knocking Pakistan over at Multan.

Ian Whitchurch

[jabbar]

I concur with everything the English fan said, except what Sauron pointed out, and teh fact he seems to overlook Ashraful.

He mentions Aftab, and refers to ODIs as "odos" and "dodos", which indicates that he rates performance in Test matches much higher. However, I think he underrates ODIs a lot. They are still difficult to play, particularly against quality opposition such as Oz and England.

This tour, in my book, has been the most beneficial for BD. If BD could extract one more win, or at least one more "competitive" match, I would rae it as the most successful series so far... So, it rates just behind the Zimbabwe series (test/odi).

[6alltheway]

First of all can i say that you are talking bout a country who started playing cricket about 20-30 years ago and team who have an avergae age of about 25 or 26 years old. You are also talking bout a country who less ecenomically developed, a country who does not have the mass wealth of rich countries such as england or australia. those rich countries started playing cricket well over 60 70 or even 80 years ago and you are suggesting that in a matter of years u expect bangladesh to bridge that gap and beat them??? you are insane, you cannot at this stage simply just criticise bangladesh in every deparment for not beating the 1st and 2nd best teams in the world. you are talking about england and australia here not kenya or zimbabwe.

I am not saying they are faultless but all this criticism is unfair becuase no has looked about the past of bangladesh before criticising the present.

What bangladesh has achieved after being a small, new and poor country is phonominal. They have young team who will be around in 10-15 years time and thats when you will see the true potential of the bangladesh team.

[paco]

AjentSmyth : your namasis has arrivd

[BanglarBir]

I do not read much into this (so called) English supporters verbal diarrhoea. It would be stupendous to think that any Tom, Dick and Harry who has seen two test matches played in a complete alien environment (to BD cricketers) has become an expert assessor of BD cricket team. I have been watching English county cricket ever since I was a little boy (which is now more than 20 years). And in my opinion not all counties have good standards of cricketing skills.

There are few things that we should remind ourselves. The test matches were played in May and especially this year month of May has been rather cold. Some days in May this year had temperatures as low as 5 degree Celsius. How many test matches I have seen that being played in this sort of conditions especially against other countries in the sub-continents? I think can’t think of many.

These test matches were played for the benefit of the English team before they take on the mighty Autrallia. After all it always gives a psychological boost to defeat a weak team before facing the might of the Aussies.

[BanglaMusic]

The other two mentionable players they currently have are Habitual
Basher and Javed Belim. From what I've seen of them on this tour,
neither of them are really international class players

Originally posted by Sauron
Wow! This guy gets cricket!! Some of his analysis might seem ruthless, but only because he is looking at it from a fresh angle. I cannot argue with anything he said except this line -

I think that is the only wrong statement in his whole piece. Again, that is understandable from someone who has not been following BD cricket day in and day our for the last 10 years.

I strongly believe that BD team has learned more from this tour than any other tour before. And we could learn so much from this tour only because we had the IND and ZIM series in your recent memories. Playing with the giants will let us learn what makes a giant and we will be one of them soon.

Habibul bashar isn't a class player. he used to be with in top ten test player list once as far as I remember.