The delights of Bangladesh playing @ Perth

[nahaz]

While watching India lose the last five wickets of the Perth test in about an hour either side of lunch today, a thought just crossed my mind: how delightful would it be to see the Bangladeshis fare on this track come World Cup 2015. Imagine if they had somehow upset the mighty English in Adelaide and are facing the Irish to try and book a place in the 2^nd round. They look at the schedule, find out its Perth and eat their biriyani at the local Nepali restaurant, giving out the most satisfying collective burp anyone has ever heard. As they drool thinking of how many centuries and 5-fors they will achieve against the Irish, they could not care less that the Irish bowlers are practising their bouncers off good lengths to the earlobes. Every little bite they take out of the Tandoori chicken is matched by the Irish bowlers trying to get the local grade batsmen to nick off that perfect ball. Every sip of coke our heroes take is matched by a drop of sweat dripping down the Irish batsmen’s neck as they bat till the last minute allocated for practice.
Come match day, as wicket after wicket falls, our players wonder what has gone wrong. Was it just the Biryani? Or was it the absolute lack of preparation since the 2011 World Cup? Was it a big mistake having no option but to take 3 spinners at the WACA with only 2 pacers? Why is it that even the spinners are struggling with the extra bounce and keep getting cut and pulled for boundaries? Why is it our batsmen cannot seem to bat at a ground where batting is a joy once you settle in? Ah, it must be the preparation. It must be the utter ignorance BCB has been exercising for the four years since 2011 by not bothering to do anything about creating sportier wickets or to send our team to conditions more similar to Australian. Maybe that 18 year old Piyon who was listening in to a BCB meeting was right: if we cannot be bothered making an effort, why should we win? Why can we not send our “A” teams to South Africa or New Zealand for some match practice in 4 day cricket? If you can bat or bowl in a four day match, surely you can in a one-dayer.
Sitting in their lounges, millions of families in Bangladesh are watching the repeated replays of Tamim getting smacked right under the helmet from an O’Brien bouncer and bowing down, with a torrent blood coming from his mouth. As holds his swollen jaw on his way back to the pavilion, Tamim wonders whether he should have said “ The Irish bowlers are ordinary” the day before. Possibly not. Oh well, back to the biriyani.
As the losing Bangladeshi captain tries to explain the walloping they received in the hands of the Irish that day, he mutters “Just wait till they come to our backyard”. Just like the Indians did in 2012.

[Zunaid]

Very nicely written.

Truth be told, you might be prescient and in 2015 this tale will unfold.

[Night_wolf]

lol..sooo true

[firstlane]

Thats why I dont mind the fact that Eng & Aus wont host us in their country for a while. We really aren't in a position to compete against their main teams. I dont want our humiliation to be broadcasted on prime time tv. We should tour those countries to play against their county/state teams or A teams at best. I am sure that will be testing enough.

[Jadukor]

Great read indeed!

[betaar]

I was thinking along the same line. If oz can do this to a batting line up like India's, then how would we fare against pace cordon of any nation?

[kalpurush]

Originally Posted by betaar
I was thinking along the same line. If oz can do this to a batting line up like India's, then how would we fare against pace cordon of any nation?

No necessarily...I beg to differ here, if I may?

The Tigers played well in England in the beginning of English summer while most thought they (Tigers) would do worse. Tigers did well against the mighty Aussies too.

You can't tell who might play better cricket in a given day, can you? Who would have thought Sri Lanka could be folded under 44 against SA? Like we killed the West Indians @ 65!

I see great future for the Tigers. Let me clear, I am NOT being emotional here.
I see abundant of lights, not just flickr of lights - in Ice Man and TI.

[WorldCup11]

Originally Posted by kalpurush
No necessarily...I beg to differ here, if I may?

You can't tell who might play better cricket in a given day, can you? Who would have thought Sri Lanka could be folded under 44 against SA?

I 100% agree with you. Every team goes through bad patches. It's India's & Srilankas bad time now, Pitches are just excuses. Someone told once " If you are in form, ball will come to your bat"

Not so long ago, this same Srilanka beaten Australia 3 out of 4 games in Australia.

Only T20I: Australia v Sri Lanka at Perth - Oct 31, 2010

Australia 133/8 (20/20 ov); Sri Lanka 135/3 (16.3/20 ov)

Sri Lanka won by 7 wickets (with 21 balls remaining)


1st ODI: Australia v Sri Lanka at Melbourne - Nov 3, 2010

Australia 239/8 (50 ov); Sri Lanka 243/9 (44.2 ov)

Sri Lanka won by 1 wicket (with 34 balls remaining)


2nd ODI: Australia v Sri Lanka at Sydney - Nov 5, 2010

Sri Lanka 213/3 (41.1/41.1 ov); Australia 210 (37.4/38 ov)

Sri Lanka won by 29 runs (D/L method)



3rd ODI: Australia v Sri Lanka at Brisbane - Nov 7, 2010

Sri Lanka 115 (32 ov); Australia 119/2 (21.4 ov)

Australia won by 8 wickets (with 170 balls remaining)

[Dilscoop]

I wanna see them play on the biggest cricket stadium, Melbourne. But I don't think they will host any of the Bangladesh games in big stadiums.

[Roni_uk]

Nicely written

[nahaz]

Thank you all for the read and the compliments. It was a moment of inspiration after watching India's tail collapsing once again, and more worryingly, their entire lineup getting caught behind and square of the wicket. I do think we can do much better than India did right now. But rest assured that for 2015 World Cup India and the like will be ready for the conditions. I am just not convinced we will be, due to the lack of will power from most individual associated with Team Bangladesh as well as BCB, especially given how much catching up we have to do.

[shuziburo]

My crystal ball is at repair shop, so I cannot predict about the 2015 WC. However, we are a rather unpredictable team. PAK is the only team against whom our team loses all the time. The scenario that you described could very well be true, but not necessarily.

[betaar]

Originally Posted by kalpurush
No necessarily...I beg to differ here, if I may?

The Tigers played well in England in the beginning of English summer while most thought they (Tigers) would do worse. Tigers did well against the mighty Aussies too.

You can't tell who might play better cricket in a given day, can you? Who would have thought Sri Lanka could be folded under 44 against SA? Like we killed the West Indians @ 65!

I see great future for the Tigers. Let me clear, I am NOT being emotional here.
I see abundant of lights, not just flickr of lights - in Ice Man and TI.

I see your point and would agree that no two games are the same in cricket and it is hard to predict the outcome of a match based the outcome of another. But there are several factors that helped me predict what I predicted and PREDICTION is the operative word here as nothing is guaranteed.

My prediction was not just based on the failure of the Ind batsmen; rather, the way the OZs bowled and the pitch behaved. To down a batting lineup like Ind (I know they suck overseas) the way the OZs did, is simply outstanding. For a beating of such nature few things such as pitch assistance and bowling of the highest class need to happen and need to happen at the same time. I know the Indians were down in confidence but batting in pitches like Perth against such swing and bounce requires high technical skill and years of experience.

We all know how inept our batsmen are in leaving a simple straight ball outside the off-stump. A bowler does not even have to swing or extract extra bounce for our batsmen to fall prey. But when the ball is really moving and good length balls are coming waist high, I cannot help but wonder how wanting our batsmen might've been. If statistics are not a good yardstick to judge skills then I believe our knowledge based on observation of our batsmen is enough to help me predict that Bangladesh would’ve been in heaps of trouble playing in grounds like Perth.