Gloucestershire Day One

[IanW]

Like Gaul, Bangladesh's tour of England has been divided into four parts.

Part one was the short series of three-day games, against the British Universities and several counties.

Part two was the two Tests against England.

Part three was the NatWest one-day series.

This is part four - a coda of three- and one-day games.

Wisely, Bangladesh's management have decided that there is little benefit to be gained from established players like Habibul Bashar, Mustafa Mortaza and Khaled Mashud to keep playing, and have replaced them with a number of fringe players.

These players hae done creditably on their first day against Gloucestershire, a county in the First Division of the English county championship.

Shahadat appears to have found his rhythm again, dismissing the Gloc's opening bat for a duck, and then keeping the pressure on. Notably, he contributed no wides to the extras column.

Syed Rassel bowled tight and successfully ; he's the sort of fastish medium pace left armer that has been historically successful in England, and he completed the job on Gloc's top order that Shahadat started.

Talha Jubair, bowling first change, also got among the wickets.

Enamul was tight, and Rahman got one in his six overs.

Bangladesh's bowlers, in their 58 overs, gave away only six no-balls and no wides -an extra every ten overs or so.

The overall economy rate and the lack of extras indicates to me that the seamers bowed tight and on the required line - from the scoring rate and lack of extras, there appeared to be little that sat up and begged to be hit.

In summary, it was good bowling in English conditions, and if they can continue in this vein, then I believe that their performances will be noted by certian county selectors.

The batting saw ex-England ODI player Jon Lewis and big seamer James Averis do damage to the Bangladesh's top order, but Alok Kapali and Tushar Imran stopped the rot with an unbeaten 69 run partnership.

It's important they go on with it, because there isnt a lot of batting to back them up, although Rahim and Rahman both have first-class centuries.

But if, in this fourth part of Bangladesh's tour of England, the bowlers continue to bowl tight and with the conditions, I'll be a lot happier about the future of the Tigers' bowling attack.

Ian Whitchurch

[Carte Blanche]

I nominate this for the front page.

[vindeshi]

wisely stated by "IanW".....

:tiger:

[banindfan]

IAN,
The bowling attack of Bangladesh is more potent than their Batting.Dont you think so.I being an Indian always felt that the bowling of Indians let down the team.But in Bangladesh's Cricket its been the reverse scenario..Their Bowling has been more consistent than their Batting.In the recently concluded test series betwn ENGvs BAN because the batting was utterly poor the bowlers felt the pressure and failed to take wickets..Whats ur reply?

[IanW]

I dont call any batting side that boasts Bash, Ash, Aftab and Mashud a poor batting side.

The issue is the bowlers to back up Masrafee and Rafique ... Shahadat and one other seamer taking a step up helps immensely, as does Enamul continuing his progress.

Ian Whitchurch

[Zobair]

I see what you are trying to say here banindfan. However, I would rephrase it as "So far the Bangladeshi batsmen have under-achieved, while the bowlers have been reasonable". But I have to agree with you on the fact that it is very hard to judge the performance of our bowlers in the England test series since the batsmen simply didn't give them much to bowl at. One can not ignore the "knock-on effect" that the poor batting performance had on the morale and subsequent performance of the bowlers.

Originally posted by banindfan
IAN,
The bowling attack of Bangladesh is more potent than their Batting.Dont you think so.I being an Indian always felt that the bowling of Indians let down the team.But in Bangladesh's Cricket its been the reverse scenario..Their Bowling has been more consistent than their Batting.In the recently concluded test series betwn ENGvs BAN because the batting was utterly poor the bowlers felt the pressure and failed to take wickets..Whats ur reply?

[ReckmyBack]

Bangladesh A played very well to get them all-out ......... a satisfied match so far .

[sadi]

alok doing good out there.... hopefully he can continue tom and go on to score some runs...