Balance of the Playing 11

[Jadukor]

Something that bothered me in the first t-20 and in the 1st ODI is that we are picking far too many bowlers at the expense of our batting.

In the first T-20 we had sunny, farhad reza, rubel, mash, gazi. That is a very long tail for a batting side like us and eventually we paid the price as we ran out of batsman to partner anamul.

In this ODI we had Sunny, Gazi, Rubel, Al Amin, Ryad. With Shakib being out of form and Ryad the deadweight coming right after, we were again destined to implode.

I think it is time the selectors thought long and hard about the balance of the side and fit Naeem in the line up as an innings builder around which the attacking players can play. We need Mash back as well to add some lower order batting depth.

Ideally i would go for a 6 batsman+ 2 all rounder + 3 specialist bowler combination to ensure we bat till number 8.

What do you guys think?

[Eshen]

The team for the most parts looks settled. But, management needs to rethink how some of the players being used-

Riyad: Can't continue to keep him as a bits-n-piece cricketer. He should be sent back to domestic cricket/A-team, and should be asked to press for a position as a specialist batsman.

Bijoy: Sending him back to domestic cricket won't help. He needs help from a batting coach to improve his footwork. Meanwhile, he can be tried at one down (otherwise, give the slot to Naeem).

Momin: His talent is obvious, but should not be overburdened with expectations. #4 is his ideal position, with Mushfiq, Shakib, and Nasir to follow him.

Pacers: I am fine with rotating between Rubel, Mash, Al Amin and Shafiul. I don't see a place for Reza or Zia.

Spinners: Rotate between Gazi, Razzak, and Sunny. Again, don't waste a place for bits-n-piece cricketers like Riyad, or Zia/Reza for that matter.

[BanCricFan]

When you can´t go for the jugular after having a team reeling at 65/8 or cannot chase down a target of 181 it has less to do with team balance and more to do with attitude. Perara had THREE lives.

I think the team selection has been very decent (across all the formats) but its the cricketers who are failing miserably to execute the plans (whatever that maybe)...Perhaps, not throwing away ones wicket or taking those catches will go a long way to help the side. We also have some key players going through a bad patch. I would drop Gazi and keep Riyad.

Shamsur
Anamul
Momin
Mushy
Shakib
Nasir
Riyad
Mashrafe
Arafat
Rubel
Al Amin

Tammotu should be rested fully as two very important tourneys coming up.

[epitaph]

For the next game, I'd go with:
Tamim, Shamsur, Naeem, Momin, Sakib, Anamul, Nasir, Gazi/Riyad, Mashrafee, Arafat, Rubel/Al Amin

But of course, that'll never happen.

How you drop the best player from the last series is beyond me. Aside from not being fair and not selecting one of the most in-form players, what message does that send to the other players?

[raad007]

Overall the team selection was okay at best. Naeem should have been included in place of Anamul maybe. Nasir seriously needs to get his act together and it would be a good idea to promote him up the order in #5. Play Shakib down and let him attack from lower down the order.

[Razi]

Totally agree with you Jadukor bhai, we really need to strengthen our batting especially when some of the senior batsmen are out of form, so here's my XI:

1. Tamim/Anamul
2. Shamsur
3. Mominul
4. Mushy
5. Naeem
6. Shakib
7. Nasir
8. Riyad/Gazi
9. Mash
10. Arafat
11. Al-Amin/Rubel

[simon]

100% agreed with JAdukor miya bhai, I'll drop Gazi & bring NAeem in.
Ryad will get one more chance but I don't mind if he gets dropped
Don't know if Mushy will be able to keep otherwise we could leave Vijay out.

[MohammedShamim]

its not about team combination, its just we lost wickets at crucial points! when we are stream rolling them we suddenly end up doing silly things! come and should have won today! but look at some of the big names how they got out! pure disagrrace.. team combination today was perfect. you can't play cricket with 11 batsmen in your team! SL only had 4 specialist bowlers today! and they won because they won those crucial moments, not becuase they played well. Shakib, Nasir, Mahmudullah failed big time! any one of them scoring a 20 was enough.

[Maysun]

I would go with:

Tamim
Shamsur
Anamul
Mominul
Shakib
Mushfiqur
Nasir
Riyad
Mashrafe
Arafat
Al-Amin/Rubel

Dropping Gazi, as he hasn't been among the wickets much and is getting tonked, dropping catches and not scoring with the bat either.

I want to give the whole series to Riyad, so if he doesn't perform, he will be overlooked for the starting XI for the Asia Cup. Don't want him to be coming in and going out, whenever the selectors and captain feels like! This is it, for Riyad.

I want to give Anamul a chance as well. Look at SA's persistence with de Kock. Had an average start to his ODI career but smashed India for three consecutive centuries. Anamul has a century so far as well, just need to back him up and make him understand that he cannot take it for granted!

[shakibrulz]

There's no point in stuffing in more batsmen in there. Just get rid of Riyad and bring in Naeem. That's it. Otherwise this batting is more than sufficient and taking bowlers out will weaken the side considerably. Bowlers actually set up the match nicely yesterday, batsmen batted like bozos after a good start.

Shamsur
Anamul
Naeem
Mominul
Shakib
Mushy
Nasir
Gazi
Mashrafe
Sunny
Rubel/Al Amin

There's batting depth till Mashrafe there. And Gazi can't be dropped, you can't just drop a player for screwing up once. He was MOTM in ODI two matches ago. He's got to get a full series here.

[Jadukor]

Originally Posted by Jadukor
I think it is time the selectors thought long and hard about the balance of the side and fit Naeem in the line up as an innings builder around which the attacking players can play. We need Mash back as well to add some lower order batting depth.

Ideally i would go for a 6 batsman+ 2 all rounder + 3 specialist bowler combination to ensure we bat till number 8.

@Shakibrulz: Your squad is pretty much what I said. This way we don't weaken the bowling either.

[jeesh]

@Jadukor, thats the combination we need. But under such circumstances we can only play one of Gazi or Razzaq/Sunny.

This is where having a pace bowling all rounder would have been so useful. Would have allowed us to play 3 spinners and 2 pacers-one of whom can bat at 8. Sohag Gazi cant be trusted at 8. Gazi at 8 means Bangladesh bats with a long tail.

[Sohel]

1. Mrs. Benson: unfit, lazy, stupid, arrogant and now married, I expect nothing from this borderline has-been anymore. BTW, he was benched ONLY because of his injury. Bichir oi rokom "bampar folon" eyakhono hoy nai to bench his fat @$$ because of hopelessly bad form.

2. Kopa: all about securing his place by reaching personal milestones, and then giving it away like a 5-dollar crack hoe. But a keeper until he stops scoring.

3. VJ: bad footwork, zero improvement since the problem was exposed, and without the hand-eye coordination of forces of nature like Sehwag, Gayle or even Shakib, he needs to grow the ef up. Major plus: temperament and shot selection once he sights the ball early and accidentally gets into position to play it right. A keeper until he stops scoring.

4. MHS: way too short but a definite keeper. He tries to make visible improvement in every game and on the whole, our most reliable player. I see him adjusting to better bowlers and tougher conditions throughout his international career. Bogurar meyer pallay na porle moderately ujjol post-marital bhobishshot, because I don't think any wife not from Bogura can make unreasonable demands on such a cute little guy.

5. Shakib: will always play the way he has played and has been successful playing. He won't change. Sometimes he'll score a 100 and other times he'll throw it away at 96. Get used to it. Pasa mota howa shuru hoise kintu he's still the best. He'll succeed a lot more often than he's likely to fail.

6. Mushfiq: his brain-freezes will continue to cost us games, and he'll continue to exercise his freedom to drop catches and blow stumping opportunities behind the stumps, especially against spinners. I suppose lateral footwork is too cumbersome to learn for such a big man. Batting-wise, he's essential because of technique and courage. Being from Bogura and more than likely to marry someone from that ball-busting province, he'll begin to decline after marriage. Until then, we'll win more games with him in the team than without him in all formats. BTW, there's no real alternative to him at this moment as captaincy goes.

7. Nasir (copy/pasted from another thread): even the best players of the game went through down-cycles and Nasir, as good a young player as he is, will never reach those heights no matter how he may appear to tower over teammates incapable of scoring even 10 test or ODI 100s at this point, thanks to our legendary failure to convert good starts into statistical milestones. So please take a chill pill and watch how he meets the combined challenge of better bowlers, tougher conditions, adoration/demonization from 160 million plus, and eventually marriage. But he won't survive marriage to any woman from Bogura. There's hope as long as he remains single.

8. Shohag: the decline, no doubt fueled by deserved praise, has already begun. Marriage, especially to a woman from Bogura, will destroy his international career for sure. In many ways he typifies the short shelf-life of our promising young players.

9. Koushik: Still our greatest threat with the new ball, and our worst death over bowler, he'll be in and out of the team whenever health permits. He's also a zillion times better with the bat than embarrassments like Zia.

10. PLO: I like him. Wonderful find who'll do great until deserved praise makes him lazy, and marriage, especially to a woman from Bogura, removes his testiscles to end his international career.

11. AA: cheharata bhalo hole he'd have been mentioned in the same breath as world beaters like Koushik and Rajib when in form. I like him a lot. Don't see him getting married anytime soon and as such, becoming our most consistent pacer in history.

[epitaph]

Mushfiq's ODI avg is 26.3. That's poor. Does he have a good trend? What's his batting avg from the last 2-3 years?

[Shaan]

keep the same team but use your brain, that's all. will not do any miracle by dropping ar changing when your brain got freeze out there. All the seniors and plus batsman who are well set should take responsibility to finish it up the game, not just fill up the personal milestone and get carried away.

[Night_wolf]

lol whats with sohel bhai and bogura!

[Fazal]

Originally Posted by Sohel
11. AA: cheharata bhalo hole he'd have been mentioned in the same breath as world beaters like Koushik and Rajib when in form. I like him a lot. Don't see him getting married anytime soon and as such, becoming our most consistent pacer in history.

... but ... but ... but he is better looking than Razzak and my favorite Tappos Bhaisob.

And in top of that, we really don;t have too many hansome players in the team. Rahim and Momin are more like a "cute" than handsome. Tamim is too fat now a days. Sakib-ke kemon jeno jani 'makunda" "makunda" type lage. Razzak aar Gazi? Thak aar nai bollam. Arafat? Naak tiple dudh ber hobe, bachha pakistani pola lage as somebody said in the game thread. Baki thaklo aar ke?

[Sohel]

Originally Posted by Night_wolf
lol whats with sohel bhai and bogura!

I was married to one as was my late father before me. Second marriage for both of us, doomed from the start. Others in our extended family have also ignored murubbi advice and wed traditionally shrewish women from that emasculating province with the dubiously proud tradition of ghor jamais. All of us have come to know a singular and piercing misery being married into that Amzonian culture.

[godzilla]

Out of curiosity, most of you guys are all saying that ANAMUL need to rectify his footwork or no place for him and to replace him with Naeem. Last time I saw Naeem bat, his foot work isn't anything to talk about either (more like no footwork at all).

Riad needs to depart. He have been wasting a position. Either be like Shakib, a proper allrounder or go back home and become specialist batsman or a bowler then come back in the team.

[Fazal]

Originally Posted by godzilla
Out of curiosity, most of you guys are all saying that ANAMUL need to rectify his footwork or no place for him and to replace him with Naeem. Last time I saw Naeem bat, his foot work isn't anything to talk about either (more like no footwork at all).

Acutally the same people who have question marks about Anamul the opener has the same question about Naeem. Both may not be suited for opener with their current footwork.

While Naeem may have limited footwork or faulty footwork, sometimes times Anamul doesn't move his foot at all. It may not that he has faulty footwork, it more likely he desides not to move his foot at all. Most likely it mental.

Until he address it ( mental or not), his chance to be a successful opener is drastically reduced. We all know he is a very guifted player. That's why we worry about him. And as some said, may be he need to start as a lower order and slowly move to top order.

Again I beleive in him, but I worry about him and the way he is used in the team.

[Jadukor]

as i feared we are running out of batsman yet again. Things would have been fine if Nasir, Ryad and Shakib were in form. Can't believe we simply dropped Naeem for no apparent reason

[BD_TigerZ]

Drop Mominul and Riyad.

Bring in Naeem and Imrul.

Tamim will be auto replacement with Bijoy once he's fit(never) and mushys finger heals.

Lala also auto back in.

[akabir77]

Shakib should replace Arafat and raz in place of mulla. Nayeem plays in place of shakib. I still want to try momi for couple of games (this one and asia cup) before leaving him for good.