A break please for Bangladesh

[Hasib]

Ok this article is really old now but i don't think its been posted here before so here goes...

A break please for Bangladesh
First published: 30 Jun 2005

International cricketer and columnist for Asian News and the Hindustan Times, Aakash Chopra examines the agony and ecstasy of being part of a national side in a cricket obsessed nation. The article was written before Bangladesh’s one-day victory over Australia.

A 10-year-old kid at my club asked me what was the point of England playing Bangladesh when even he knew the outcome beforehand. He thought it far better to watch the play-off between Preston and West Ham United.
I don't know what it's like to be a Bangladeshi cricketer at the moment especially here in England, where the debate over Bangladesh's test status rages.
But there's one thing I do know. That's how it is to be a cricketer in an absolutely cricket-obsessed nation, one that adores its pantheon of stars one day, abhors them the next.
Bangladeshis, like Indians, worship cricket and everything to do with the game and I have a good idea of the strain the Bangladeshi players must be feeling.
Having been at the receiving end of some unhappy publicity, I know what it feels like to be in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. I also have some experience of what it's like to be part of a team that seems unable to win.
Many years ago I played a season of professional cricket in Holland for a club called Gandhi. Unfortunately, our team was the weakest in the group and I was also very inexperienced --- my first class career was barely a couple of years old. Ours was a straggly bunch that struggled to put together 11 players for each game. We started the season hoping to win a few games. Very quickly, we realised we couldn't, we were just not good enough.
We would get up every morning, practice weekly and lose on Sunday. It's very difficult to keep up morale when you know defeat is inevitable. But something keeps you going. Maybe force of habit, maybe that something called hope. Anyway, this was only club cricket. It gets over after a few months and if things don't change, your team is relegated (as it happened in the case of the Gandhis). You rarely come under severe scrutiny from the press, the plethora of experts or above all, your own countrymen.
So if I say my club experience means I can relate to the Bangladeshi cricketers' plight, it would be an exaggeration. But from my experience in India I can say you're often recognised by your team's performance. Even when you're not part of the team itself, you get congratulations or criticism depending on results. So I have a fair idea of what the Bangladeshi cricketers must be facing back home.
Bangladesh does have a couple of advantages. It gets a head start because of the enthusiasm and love for the game in that densely populated land of Bengalis.
Even though their international record isn't anything to write home about, they have managed to produce a few standout performances.
They scored nearly 300 in a day against Australia in Australia (of course, they lost the match and the series) but it was an interesting statistic. They defeated Pakistan in the World Cup, did fairly well in the West Indies and, more recently, defeated India in a one-day encounter.
Maybe the world should sit back and give them a break.

[oracle]

As far as breaks are concerned , we will get one after the SL tour. I really am not interested in these triangular and Asia cup affairs. We should'nt send a full test side for these less important matches. But I think afte rthe SL matches we will get that break for honing and absorbing the skills they have acquired. I really don't know what this writer has in mind but breaks should be limited to 6 months max. We are after all a test side.

[akabir77]

yeah its really old and you are wrong it was posted in BC

[Hasib]

You guys dont get it... he was refering to the fact that people shud stop critizising by saying "break"!

oh and btw i did do a search before posting it....turned up nothing .

Edited on, August 15, 2005, 2:36 PM GMT, by Hasib.

[istiak]

I can't really remember where but sure of reading it in BC!