Pace Attack: A Matter of Big Concern?

[FagunerAgun]

Ian: my rebuttals in order.

"As compared, say, to the WICB ? Or maybe the PCB ?"

I do not want to compare BCB with the WICB or the PCB, I want BCB does its jobs efficiently to meet the ongoing needs of our players development. To compare one bad apple with the worse one and then feel good is an act of a dumber and kills one's entrepreneurship and innovation.

"Actually, no, lets compare the BCB to every other institution in Bangladesh."

Every other institutions in BD have a budget and resource constrain but affluent BCB does not. Additionally, it has been closely interacting with other Test playing nations, hence it is easier for them to learn and practice.

"Bangladesh is a wet, flat, low-lying tropical country. Therefore, turf wickets will tend to be slow. Unless, for example, you manage to dehumidify the air around the wicket for days to weeks."

West Indies has more rain than Bangladesh, if they can do it, why we can’t. Mud creates better bouncy pitches.

"Now, you can prepare bouncy wickets by use of astroturf over concrete ... but these wickets cannot be used for first-class cricket."

At least we can make an indoor bouncy pitch for the National Team Members practice.

"Look, BCB reports to Parliament, and Parliament can get them fired. The wasteful, useless junket probably cost about USD30k for the two of them ... but it wasnt the BCB's idea, and frankly I'd prefer not to pick a fight over 30 grand for people that can cancel the visa of the coach."

If BCB people get fired unlawfully, they can go to the Court of Law, because our Judiciary system is independent, additionally, you must have the courage to do the right thing for your country does not matter what. We do not need a fight over 30k, but need to criticize if we think that is not right as we live in a democratic society. Do not forget, 30k USD is a big amount for an institution in a country like Bangladesh.

[IanW]

Warwolf,

Trust me, Bangladesh is just fine at one day cricket. You want slow, accurate bowlers and batsmen who throw the bat in that, and thats what the Tigers have. ODIs can look after themselves (and in any case, express bowlers are useless in T20 and ODIs - one of the crimes of the shortened game is you only want line and length, not someone who can find an outside edge with pace).

When the Pacer Hunt was on, someone or other, who might have been WarWolf whined

Well, Rubel Hossain came out of that class, and he's just played two tests on slow pitches, and he seemed to do OK from where I'm sitting. At the least, he's an upgrade over Tapash Baiysa, and he seemed to outbowl all the local seamers who weren't Roach or Sammy.

Creating Test Cricketers is a long term process, and I'm perfectly happy with Rubel Hossain's development.

Basically, siddown, shuddup, relax and enjoy the way the team's playing.

[IanW]

Faguner,

Again, the BCB has done just fine in the player development process.

The West Indies have sea breezes in the dry season that can dry pitches out. Bangladesh, by and large, doesnt. BTW, you may check out Guyana's (not an island btw) traditional reputation as a fast track (lol). Basically, pitch type is ruled by weather and geography, and whining doesnt change either.

''At least we can make an indoor bouncy pitch for the National Team Members practice.

If you were paying attention, you'd know this has happened already.

Faguner, quit showing your naievity. Corrupt pols dont directly fire people. They just arrange for inquiries that keep showing smoke where it may or may not be, harass you with bureaucratic warfare, and arrange for friendly journos and party hacks to keep a drumbeat of criticism up about you. Alleging racism for or against certain ethnic groups, sub-groups or regions is always a good one too.

[FagunerAgun]

Originally Posted by IanW
Faguner,

Again, the BCB has done just fine in the player development process.

The West Indies have sea breezes in the dry season that can dry pitches out. Bangladesh, by and large, doesnt. BTW, you may check out Guyana's (not an island btw) traditional reputation as a fast track (lol). Basically, pitch type is ruled by weather and geography, and whining doesnt change either.

''At least we can make an indoor bouncy pitch for the National Team Members practice.

If you were paying attention, you'd know this has happened already.

Faguner, quit showing your naievity. Corrupt pols dont directly fire people. They just arrange for inquiries that keep showing smoke where it may or may not be, harass you with bureaucratic warfare, and arrange for friendly journos and party hacks to keep a drumbeat of criticism up about you. Alleging racism for or against certain ethnic groups, sub-groups or regions is always a good one too.

This is funny with a deflection. Now you are talking about political corruption and conspiracies, bureaucratic bungling and racism which happen much more in the imperialist societies than an emerging country.

[WarWolf]

I got your point IanW. When a system is running there must be some kinda of progress, some times automatically. This is the case with us.These days we don't have much limitations with budget.

• A talk about pace bowling academy has been flying on the air for quite a some time. But we see no progress so far.

• BCB should have tried to get experienced curators from out side. Sporting wickets are useful for not only the pacers, but also for the batsmen to nurture. A good news regarding this, last month BCB published ads on this issue. It's better late than never.

• Pacer hunt program got stopped. Why? If Grammenphone doesn't want to continue it then they should have gone for other sponsors. At least they could do it with their own budget. They have the money for it.

• Training to develop good curators are important. We haven't seen any effort regarding this.

We need to progress. We need to take 10+10=20 wickets in a test match to win it. It will not be possible with spinners alone most of the times, specially against teams like India, Pakistan, SL and Aus. This is where pacers would play the most vital roles.

[IanW]

Swinging this back to pitches.

I say that rain causes slow tracks, and wind and sunshine causes fast tracks.

I give examples - notably that games played in the West Indies in the shoulder of the Wet Season cause slow tracks (ie recent tour, recent WC), that grounds like Guyana that dont get wind tend to be slow and that places like Tasmania and New Zealand dont create fast and bouncy tracks.

On the other hand, places with lots of sea brezes and sunshine - like Perth - do.

Do you have counter-examples ?

Or are you going to continue, like Canute, to rail against natural causes and whine that someone should Do Something.

[Eshen]

Besides Rubel and Subhasis, pacer hunt has not discovered any good talent. Since there is no age limit, winners of the competition generally turn out to be older guys, able bodied but with faulty action, little to no knowledge about fast bowling skills. BCB coaches spent months in pacer hunt and in follow up training camps, but I don't think the return was worth it.

I think a better approach for BCB will be to have strong regional school leagues (just not one strong Dhaka based league) and have scouts to find young talents from there.

[WarWolf]

Originally Posted by IanW
Swinging this back to pitches.

I say that rain causes slow tracks, and wind and sunshine causes fast tracks.

I give examples - notably that games played in the West Indies in the shoulder of the Wet Season cause slow tracks (ie recent tour, recent WC), that grounds like Guyana that dont get wind tend to be slow and that places like Tasmania and New Zealand dont create fast and bouncy tracks.

On the other hand, places with lots of sea brezes and sunshine - like Perth - do.

Do you have counter-examples ?

Or are you going to continue, like Canute, to rail against natural causes and whine that someone should Do Something.

In one of my previous posts, I wrote that I don't want WACA. But it has to be at least a moderate wicket to be used in the domestic level.

Any way, I am giving up now. I have been enjoying this so far as a good constructive discussion. But your last few lines don't encourage me to continue.

Thanks.

[IanW]

Eshen,

It's a pretty cheap program, as such things go. One new player every three years makes it worth it IMO.

[FagunerAgun]

We got a skunk here.

[Eshen]

Originally Posted by IanW
Eshen,

It's a pretty cheap program, as such things go. One new player every three years makes it worth it IMO.

I guess you are right, but this competition got to have age limit. you can't do much with a 20 years old who can bowl fast but has not even played in local district league, has a crappy action and knows nothing how to swing or seam a ball.

[Eshen]

Here is a long article trying to analyze why Pakistanis have produced so many good fast bowlers and and Indians have not -

http://www.chowk.com/articles/10335

I think the author has pointed out a very good point - role models. Imran Khan and Waqar Younis encouraged generations of Pakistanis to take up fast bowling, India had none like them. In our case, many of our spinners actually have better physique than our pacers have, but they took up slow bowling following Rafique.

[Gowza]

i think they should make the age limit under 25 and have someone who can tell whether the action is legal or not before the finish of the hunt. you can't have someone with a dodgey action win the pacer hunt, the goal needs to be to find a fast bowler with a legal action. even if they're 24/25, if thye have a legal action and have pace you can give them a couple of seasons in the domestic leagues and see where it goes.

but what is the specific goal of the pacer hunt? i would make it find bowlers with legal actions who can consistently bowl 130km/h+, a 140+ bowler is nice but atm BD needs a few more 130+ bowlers to choose from because although there are more each year there's still not that many around.

[IanW]

Eshen,

Theres the issue that a lot of subcontinental kids in the country dont have particularily good proof of when they were born ; this has been a chronic issue with youth teams.

As to the influence of Imran Khan, oh yeah, for sure. I'd also say in Srinath, India had a superstar fast bowler. Certainly, India currently have more and better quicks than they have historically had.

I'd hope Masrafee preforms the same role in Bangladesh.

[Eshen]

BTW, Ian, our curatorts at times surprised us with some good sporting wickets on Mirpur (generally for practice matches). I think they can do much better job than preparing dead tracks that we so often see in international matches.

[Eshen]

To add to my previous post, weather conditions in Bangladesh and West Bengal are very similar, yet Kolkata has a pretty good sporting wicket in Eden Gardens.

[IanW]

Eshen,

The issue isn't the great national stadiums, it's the district and subdistrict pitches, and then tendency of club captains to bowl good young quicks into either injury, exhaustion or becoming military medium pacers.

The third is a particular difficulty with the amount of one day cricket being played by clubs - a wicket-taking Test fast bowler really is different from someone whose job is containment (ie getting the outside edge is a potential catch in a four-day game, or a potential four in a one day game).

[Eshen]

Ian, I don't expect BCB to change the cricket culture of the country in a season. But preparing some sporting wickets in grounds they own (BKSP grounds, divisional grounds, and few other smaller grounds) so that we can some meaningful matches on them - that should be a good start. I understand hard pitches will be hard to prepare in places like Chittagong, Khulna, and Barisal because of high humidity, but weather conditions are not so bad in many other places (Dhaka, Bogra, Rajshahi, Mymensigh) during cricket season (mid October to mid April).

As far as mistreatment of players goes, have not heard any bad story lately. Players get injured because of crammed domestic fixture, club captains can't do anything about it. BCB needs to sit with club admins and figure out the situation.

As far as young talents go, I believe BKSP does a good job protecting their students while they are there. Chronic injury problems generally start to occur when students get out of the school.

[beshideshi]

The reasons are quite simple to be honest,
I personally had the privilege to play in a number of domestic cricket games in Bangladesh[by domestic I mean out of Dhaka]. I dont knknow how many of you have actually seen the pitches, but they are as good as cement pitches, they are so flat, and have such little swing/pace/bounce. that i doubt McGrath could get a set batsman out in those pitches. We simply HAVE to make better pitches at the root level, a good bowling pitch in out best cricket stadium doesnt really mean we are going to have 10s of pacers coming up. This to my believe is one of the main reason.
Then we have the envious success of our slow blowers, if we make a list if our top 10 bowlers ever, I doubt any pacer would make it[except Mashrafe, we wont count him pacer, he is the 'exception']
So, when a 12 year old pacer sees Shakib getting 7fers, and shahadat giving away 70 runs in 10 overs, he will be temted to take up spin.
And the last point I would like to raise is more from a personal experience, I have seen coaches suggesting to young pacers[lesser talented] to become spinners. It gives the body much less stress, you get to have a longer career, and can consider batting and make a more solid position in your team.
The things we can do to improve our pace resources:
1. better pitches
2. we have to create fast bowler minds, a cricketer must seek pleasure in beating a batter by pace, or hitting his helmet, we have to generate monstrous quickee mentality.
3, specialist coaches for root level, some one like Champaka, I think he will do fine in the root level :P

[IanW]

Beshideshi,

If you're dealing with a sub-first-class level, pour concrete, put astroturf on top of it. They are the standard pitch for subdistrict cricket in Australia. They have bounce, but consistent bounce.

[Imteaz]

Whatever the plan comes to my mind is old.

[BANFAN]

Could shoaib be a spinner?

Mentality/attitude of the bowler is so important. I saw the right attitude in Shahadat but I think we don't yet know how to refine them and maintain their attitude. As the days go by Rubel is also losing his initial expressions & entho. They probably are being made to think that it has to be a friendly pitch for the pacers. Or else they are useless. They must learn to bowl in dead pitches, WI bowlers have bowled with great effect, ours were no where.

So it's not all about sproting pitches or infrastructure. What's the point of producing tons of pacers if we don't know how to groom them?

[Imteaz]

A pace bowler needs support from other end. Mashrafe is not that much able for international level to provide full support to other bowlers.

So, we need time.

[WarWolf]

Originally Posted by BANFAN
Could shoaib be a spinner?

Mentality/attitude of the bowler is so important. I saw the right attitude in Shahadat but I think we don't yet know how to refine them and maintain their attitude. As the days go by Rubel is also losing his initial expressions & entho. They probably are being made to think that it has to be a friendly pitch for the pacers. Or else they are useless. They must learn to bowl in dead pitches, WI bowlers have bowled with great effect, ours were no where.

So it's not all about sproting pitches or infrastructure. What's the point of producing tons of pacers if we don't know how to groom them?

Good point. Coaching is important. Not only for teaching the techniques but also teaching the attitude .India has come a long way in terms of producing the pace bowlers since they started to invest on pace bowlers. MRF Pace Academy is doing a wonderful job.

[WarWolf]

So we need to take the following steps ASAP.

• Individual capable bowling coaches for U19 and academy my teams. Also accountability from Champaka needs to be ensured for his works with the national team.I am not happy with his effort so far with the pacers.
• Setting up a pace bowling academy. If no sponsor steps in then BCB should set it up and run with their own money.
• Installing sporting wickets in domestic levels so that pacers, spinners and batsmen all can groom up well.
• Investing more money in school cricket. This is the place to look for raw young talented pacers. Noway we can ingore it anymore.
• Getting at least 5 highly qualified curators for 5 divisions. They will look after the wickets in their attached divisions. Also they can be used to train up local curators.
• Once Miraz bhai was pointing out that our national team has no dietitian. I think this is a major flaw. Pacers need better strengths, energy and fitness. Diets should be strictly monitored.
• And most importantly starting up the pacer hunt program again. It's very much cost effective. No way we can ignore it.