Should Bangladesh be disallowed to play Test cricket?

[The One]

It's been 10 years since Bangladesh arrived at the Test arena, and they are yet to score a Test win against major Test nation. Forget the wins against depleted sorry as Zimbabwe teams or the 3rd grade WI teams they played recently. Only in few occasions they even managed to salvage a satisfactory draw even in home conditions. If they needed to improve they had all the resources, not to mention opportunities but they are no where near being a credible Test nation in my opinion.

Yes they have a few upset wins under their belt in ODIs, even in major tournaments like WC, but does that really suffice? Test cricket is where you are really tested, where just one brillian performance is not enough to win a match. If it is your day you can win an ODI, but not a Test. If you are to win a Test you need more than just one 'your days' if you know what I mean. Bangladesh so far has failed miserably.

You shouldn't compare Bangladesh with Zimbabwe because just when they were developing into a good team with the likes of Flower brothers, Heath Streak and some other good players, the politics intevened and that was the end of Zimbabwe cricket. So we never know where they would have been in now if it wasn't the case. However I believe they too should be disallowed. If you really need to compare, the rightful comparison would be with Sri Lanka, the last Test nation before Bangladesh and Zimbabwe arrived. They were a far FAR better team 10 years into Test cricket than Bangladesh is today. In early 90's they had a very good team compared to this Bangladesh team, the likes of Ranatunga, De Silva, Mahanama, Gurusinghe, Thillakaratne etc. Plus the likes of Muralitharan, Atapattu were emergin youngsters. And they had some wins under their belt by then, not to mention a few more draws and respectable losses.

However, Bangladesh being in the Test arena seriously affect the quality of Test cricket. Test cricket isn't, and shall not be, for the faint hearted. It shouldn't be easy, but the sad truth is Test cricket with Bangladesh is in fact very easy. You know one way or the other you are going to win - seldom it gets difficult. Hence, every stats analysis has to be done 'Excluding Bangladesh' and 'Excluding Zimbabwe' which tells a story. If their performance is not worthy of considering when stats analysis is done, then they are surely not worthy of palying Test cricket.

What are your thoughts?

[Imteaz]

Million Dollar Question!!!!!!!!!!!!

Personally I think we were supposed to get the status after 4-5 years later, during 2003/04. Our improvement could be accelerated.

We got the status easily so we never realize the value of it. Still our Board do not know what to do to run a test Team. A person like Lotus Kamal can be the board president where he doesn't know about cricket and cricket manner. Alas!!!!!!!!!

Amra Shob Kichuke Onek Shosta Banie Felechi. Actually Amra Nijerai Onek Shosta.

Finally, this discussion is irrelevant now. I haven't read or see anywhere in recent past that ICC is thinking about it. If they think than we should discuss.

[Nasif]

Disallowing test cricket doesn't buy anything. Thats not the solution.

If you have headache, you don't chop off your head.

[ma_o_mati]

we got test status in 2000 and you post this thread in 2010...so if you know math then thats 10.

we been playing test only for 1o yrs. whereas other countries are playing for 30, 40 or 50 yrs...

with 160 million people and a growing economy Bangladesh is the next India of cricket...from a business point of view ICC need Bangladesh...overtime the quality will improve too...in 3/4 years when we have 3/4 tamim iqbal, the world be aware...

finally, its been only ten years...arguement ends there...don't gimme that crap that in these ten yrs we have played more tha sl or nz....it's still ten years...

bd is way better than zim in tests and very close to full strength west indies...if we can sort our bowling department we can climb up the ladder before you blink your eyes...

[ma_o_mati]

when icc gave us test statues, they should've given another country like kenya test status at the same time...then we would've seen how much progress each made

and then all these bs would've stopped...now everyone brings either srilanka or nz...well that was a different time and now is a different time...

[shakibrulz]

Yawn.

[The One]

Still all my points stand, don't they?

Bangladesh was never ready for Tests when they got it in 2000, but they got it as a result of a ridiculous power struggle. At the time India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were in an alliance and wanted more power at the ICC and that's why they encouraged and helped Bangladesh to get Test status. Then they were left helpless on the big stage.

The point is, 'we will be good in few yeras' has been sung by many for years now. Yes I brought it up after 10 years for a reason - to show that they aren't worthy of playing at the highest level and it in general affects the level of Test cricket. Sad as it may seem, a Bangladesh tour has come down to other teams as a good opportunity for players who lost form to get back in form. It's not about if you'd win, it's a matter of when and who will win it for you, when it comes to touring nations.

As I said, stats analysis are done almost always excluding Bangladesh. Thta says a story. Bangladesh, in my opinion, need to strengthen domestic cricket, and tour other countries as A team more often. That, alongside with good balanced wickets - batting on flat tracks aren't going to help. If you bat on flat tracks and still lose what chances do you have on bowler friendly tracks.

I firmly believe that Bangladesh is still not up to Test cricket.

[The One]

Originally Posted by shakibrulz
Should Pakistan and Windies be stripped off their test status?

Not Pakistan, but Windies are a cause for concern. However they still are ahead of Bangladesh by a mile.

[badguy]

Originally Posted by ma_o_mati
we got test status in 2000 and you post this thread in 2010...so if you know math then thats 10.

we been playing test only for 1o yrs. whereas other countries are playing for 30, 40 or 50 yrs...

with 160 million people and a growing economy Bangladesh is the next India of cricket...from a business point of view ICC need Bangladesh...overtime the quality will improve too...in 3/4 years when we have 3/4 tamim iqbal, the world be aware...

finally, its been only ten years...arguement ends there...don't gimme that crap that in these ten yrs we have played more tha sl or nz....it's still ten years...

bd is way better than zim in tests and very close to full strength west indies...if we can sort our bowling department we can climb up the ladder before you blink your eyes...

Actually ZIm improved a lot in 90s than what BAn are doing right now.They even won a test v IND.They had bats like Andy Flower,Houghton & Murray Goodwin.I don't see a single batsman in BAN ATM who got that quality.ZIM also had bowlers like Heath Streak,Olonga & Paul Strang.Shahadat Hossain has shown some talent & Shakib is a smart operator for BAN.

Can't say BAN are close to WI full team who got Gayle,Chanderpaul,Sarvan & Bravo.BAN batsman are good at performing disastrous collapses after getting up to good positions.Compared to SL & ZIM,BAN development has been very disappointing.

[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by The One
It's been 10 years since Bangladesh arrived at the Test arena, and they are yet to score a Test win against major Test nation. Forget the wins against depleted sorry as Zimbabwe teams or the 3rd grade WI teams they played recently. Only in few occasions they even managed to salvage a satisfactory draw even in home conditions. If they needed to improve they had all the resources, not to mention opportunities but they are no where near being a credible Test nation in my opinion.

Yes they have a few upset wins under their belt in ODIs, even in major tournaments like WC, but does that really suffice? Test cricket is where you are really tested, where just one brillian performance is not enough to win a match. If it is your day you can win an ODI, but not a Test. If you are to win a Test you need more than just one 'your days' if you know what I mean. Bangladesh so far has failed miserably.

given the timing of this thread, i'm inlined to calling it "knee jerk".

as such, you would be more justified to question Bangladesh's ODI status. we have not competed in an ODI match in a long time.

as for Test status, 3 of our last 4 tests were pushed well into the 5th day. In fact, here are our last 4 opening stands during the tour to England - where all Subcontinent teams struggle to bat in early season conditions: 88, 185, 126, and 2. the average of those is 100.25...and if you remove the outlier, is 133. Pakistan will play 4 tests in England soon, in mid summer conditions, if they can fail to do significantly better, should we advocate them losing test status too?

put another way: South Africa, England, Australia, and West Indies have all lost multiple tests by an innings since January 2009. Bangladesh has only lost one out of 10 tests, with only two of those being against "WI 3rd string". Even India has lost by an innings at least once in that time span.

In fact, check out the numbers from this recent thread, and you will see that the recent 18 months Bangladesh Test performance hasn't been totally bad comapred to say India when they started playing.

You shouldn't compare Bangladesh with Zimbabwe because just when they were developing into a good team with the likes of Flower brothers, Heath Streak and some other good players, the politics intevened and that was the end of Zimbabwe cricket. So we never know where they would have been in now if it wasn't the case. However I believe they too should be disallowed. If you really need to compare, the rightful comparison would be with Sri Lanka, the last Test nation before Bangladesh and Zimbabwe arrived. They were a far FAR better team 10 years into Test cricket than Bangladesh is today. In early 90's they had a very good team compared to this Bangladesh team, the likes of Ranatunga, De Silva, Mahanama, Gurusinghe, Thillakaratne etc. Plus the likes of Muralitharan, Atapattu were emergin youngsters. And they had some wins under their belt by then, not to mention a few more draws and respectable losses.

no one is disputing the merit of Sri Lanka, or even the merit of the original zimbabwe side. we're not even disputing the fact that bangladesh didn't really deserve to be there back in 2000.

but now in 2010, the test team is showing fight not just at home, but abroad as well. they pushed a test to 5 days in NZ and in England. just compare the 2005 england tour to the one from 2010 and you will see what strides are being made. In 2004, even a brilliant 158* from Ashraful failed ot prevent India winning by an innings. In 2010, we lost 7 wickets for 22 runs, and India still couldn't win by an innings, albeit they declared in the first innings, but thats besides the point.

and do you really think the Flower brothers would still be playing now? and even if they were, Andy would probably so old that he'd suck more than Ashraful.

However, Bangladesh being in the Test arena seriously affect the quality of Test cricket. Test cricket isn't, and shall not be, for the faint hearted. It shouldn't be easy, but the sad truth is Test cricket with Bangladesh is in fact very easy. You know one way or the other you are going to win - seldom it gets difficult. Hence, every stats analysis has to be done 'Excluding Bangladesh' and 'Excluding Zimbabwe' which tells a story. If their performance is not worthy of considering when stats analysis is done, then they are surely not worthy of palying Test cricket.

this is a product of the inherent eccentricities of cricket.

The Detroit Lions have been the laughing stock of the National Football League for quite some time now. Do you think Chris Berman filters them out when trying to calculate Adrian Peterson's rushing average on Inside the NFL? I don't think so.

Inzimam scored a grand total of one Test century against the premier team of his era, Australia. Does this mean he is not a good Batsman?

Sachin Tendulkar has the shoddiest of 4th innings averages of any modest batsmen, does this mean he is not worthy to bat in the 4th innings?

if you dissect the numbers, you can prove anything. no one is saying bangladesh are a powerhouse. but we should at least give them a chance, especially when the corner is just starting to be turned.

[The One]

Originally Posted by al Furqaan
given the timing of this thread, i'm inlined to calling it "knee jerk".

as such, you would be more justified to question Bangladesh's ODI status. we have not competed in an ODI match in a long time.

as for Test status, 3 of our last 4 tests were pushed well into the 5th day. In fact, here are our last 4 opening stands during the tour to England - where all Subcontinent teams struggle to bat in early season conditions: 88, 185, 126, and 2. the average of those is 100.25...and if you remove the outlier, is 133. Pakistan will play 4 tests in England soon, in mid summer conditions, if they can fail to do significantly better, should we advocate them losing test status too?

put another way: South Africa, England, Australia, and West Indies have all lost multiple tests by an innings since January 2009. Bangladesh has only lost one out of 10 tests, with only two of those being against "WI 3rd string". Even India has lost by an innings at least once in that time span.

In fact, check out the numbers from this recent thread, and you will see that the recent 18 months Bangladesh Test performance hasn't been totally bad comapred to say India when they started playing.



no one is disputing the merit of Sri Lanka, or even the merit of the original zimbabwe side. we're not even disputing the fact that bangladesh didn't really deserve to be there back in 2000.

but now in 2010, the test team is showing fight not just at home, but abroad as well. they pushed a test to 5 days in NZ and in England. just compare the 2005 england tour to the one from 2010 and you will see what strides are being made. In 2004, even a brilliant 158* from Ashraful failed ot prevent India winning by an innings. In 2010, we lost 7 wickets for 22 runs, and India still couldn't win by an innings, albeit they declared in the first innings, but thats besides the point.

and do you really think the Flower brothers would still be playing now? and even if they were, Andy would probably so old that he'd suck more than Ashraful.




this is a product of the inherent eccentricities of cricket.

The Detroit Lions have been the laughing stock of the National Football League for quite some time now. Do you think Chris Berman filters them out when trying to calculate Adrian Peterson's rushing average on Inside the NFL? I don't think so.

Inzimam scored a grand total of one Test century against the premier team of his era, Australia. Does this mean he is not a good Batsman?

Sachin Tendulkar has the shoddiest of 4th innings averages of any modest batsmen, does this mean he is not worthy to bat in the 4th innings?

if you dissect the numbers, you can prove anything. no one is saying bangladesh are a powerhouse. but we should at least give them a chance, especially when the corner is just starting to be turned.

Some very good and sensible points.

However, you've said what really I wanted to tell. Bangladesh come up with some good, even brilliant performances. Those opening stands you've shown are good examples. However, as I said, one good performance, one good stand don't win you Tests - they will win T20s or ODIs for you but not Tests. You need to hang on for 5 days with good performance to win which is what Bangladesh fails to do.

Your stats about dragging the match to 5th day doesn't really say the story as if you see, even if they dragged it for the 5th day they still were clearly gonna lose. The result of those Test were quite obvious from days 3 or 4 weren't they?

[The One]

Originally Posted by ma_o_mati
when icc gave us test statues, they should've given another country like kenya test status at the same time...then we would've seen how much progress each made

and then all these bs would've stopped...now everyone brings either srilanka or nz...well that was a different time and now is a different time...

Are you serious? Making the problem doubled? LOL

[badguy]

Originally Posted by The One
Some very good and sensible points.

However, you've said what really I wanted to tell. Bangladesh come up with some good, even brilliant performances. Those opening stands you've shown are good examples. However, as I said, one good performance, one good stand don't win you Tests - they will win T20s or ODIs for you but not Tests. You need to hang on for 5 days with good performance to win which is what Bangladesh fails to do.

Your stats about dragging the match to 5th day doesn't really say the story as if you see, even if they dragged it for the 5th day they still were clearly gonna lose. The result of those Test were quite obvious from days 3 or 4 weren't they?

Yeah that's the point.It's very one sided even if it goes to the 5th day.

Lolz at that proposal of giving BAN & Kenya both test status.

[The One]

Originally Posted by badguy
Yeah that's the point.It's very one sided even if it goes to the 5th day.

Lolz at that proposal of giving BAN & Kenya both test status.

If anything I guess the two-tier Test system is good. At least that gives opportunity of not having so one sided games.

[badguy]

Originally Posted by The One
If anything I guess the two-tier Test system is good. At least that gives opportunity of not having so one sided games.

I'd agree to a two-tier test championship.BAN is sadly degrading the quality of test cricket ATM.

[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by The One
Some very good and sensible points.

However, you've said what really I wanted to tell. Bangladesh come up with some good, even brilliant performances. Those opening stands you've shown are good examples. However, as I said, one good performance, one good stand don't win you Tests - they will win T20s or ODIs for you but not Tests. You need to hang on for 5 days with good performance to win which is what Bangladesh fails to do.

Your stats about dragging the match to 5th day doesn't really say the story as if you see, even if they dragged it for the 5th day they still were clearly gonna lose. The result of those Test were quite obvious from days 3 or 4 weren't they?

true, but the main point is that most of the improvements have come in the past 18 months. i think its not only wrong to call for BD to lose their test status, but too late as well. calls were quite valid before 2008, when forget 5th day, we rarely saw 4th days.

[Miraz]

The One, get your facts right mate!! West Indies ahead of Bangladesh by a mile?

Take last 10 Test matches played as the benchmark to get the latest situation.

West Indies

	Span	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	Draw	W/L	Ave	RPO	HS	LS

filtered

2009-2010

10

0

7

0

2

0.00

28.14

3.30

544

102

That's 7 losses in 10 matches with 2 draws and 1 no result with batting average 28.14


Bangladesh

	Span	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	Draw	W/L	Ave	RPO	HS	LS

filtered

2009-2010

10

2

8

0

0

0.25

28.11

3.29

419

123

Played 10 Tests Won 2 with a batting average of 28.11.

West Indies miles ahead? Really??

[Imteaz]

Kothin Obostha Dekhi.

[badguy]

Originally Posted by Miraz
Played 10 Tests Won 2 with a batting average of 28.11.

West Indies miles ahead? Really??

Against 2nd string WI team,is it?

[Equinox]

Test cricket is the only format where we are even competitive these days.

[Baundule]

I would love to see much more improvement of our team; but what we have done so far should be enough to play test matches.

On a related note, IMO a person that understands and loves cricket will be more interested in bringing in new forces to the cricket world than chopping the heads here and there. The main difference between football and cricket is their governing bodies, FIFA and the ICC. The snob ICC is doing nothing to spread cricket, they are simply destroying new possibilities of making cricket popular in exchange of the temporary benefit of the BCCI, the ECB and the CA.

[Kesh24]

I agree with The One. Bangladesh doesn't deserve to play test cricket. Until they win Odis consistently and prove that they are good enough they shouldn't be allowed to play. A once in a blue moon good performance is not enough. Atm they just can't cope with test cricket. Its the plain truth. Test cricket should be played by the best out of the lot and Bangla is not one of them. Even WI is a concern but they are at least ahead of Bangla. All they do most of the time is make test matches boring and predictable most of the time. See what happend in England. Just not good enough. Its not right to bring down the value of test cricket by playing crappy cricket.

[The One]

Originally Posted by Miraz
The One, get your facts right mate!! West Indies ahead of Bangladesh by a mile?

Take last 10 Test matches played as the benchmark to get the latest situation.

West Indies


That's 7 losses in 10 matches with 2 draws and 1 no result with batting average 28.14


Bangladesh


Played 10 Tests Won 2 with a batting average of 28.11.

West Indies miles ahead? Really??

I have my facts right, but do you? Those two wins are against a 3rd grade (not even 2nd) WI side. And look at the manner in which WI lost and Bangladesh lost. WI at least comes up with commendable performance some times while when Bangla plays, it is obvious after a day or two that they are going to lose. Only, when will they lose is the question.

[The One]

Originally Posted by Baundule
I would love to see much more improvement of our team; but what we have done so far should be enough to play test matches.

On a related note, IMO a person that understands and loves cricket will be more interested in bringing in new forces to the cricket world than chopping the heads here and there. The main difference between football and cricket is their governing bodies, FIFA and the ICC. The snob ICC is doing nothing to spread cricket, they are simply destroying new possibilities of making cricket popular in exchange of the temporary benefit of the BCCI, the ECB and the CA.

The whole point I was making was that you shouldn't bring in new teams to the top level just because. That degrades the level of Test cricket. Test cricket is supposed to be hard, and for that a level should be maintained. A country shouldn't be let in if it is not ready which is obviously the case here.

[Miraz]

Originally Posted by The One
I have my facts right, but do you? Those two wins are against a 3rd grade (not even 2nd) WI side. And look at the manner in which WI lost and Bangladesh lost. WI at least comes up with commendable performance some times while when Bangla plays, it is obvious after a day or two that they are going to lose. Only, when will they lose is the question.

3rd grade or 2nd grade? Really?

Kemar Roach
David Bernard
Travis Dowlin
Nikita Millar
Dave Riochards
Darren Sammy
Ryan Hinds

All plyed Test matches for West Indies after that series. Only 4-5 leading players are missing, rest of them now make the the first XI of west Indies Test/ODI team.

Anyway, Bangladesh was competitive in most of the Test matches except the last one at Old Trafford. Check the scorecards before posting please.

If Bangladesh is rubbish in Test cricket, current West Indies is equally rubbish.