Test 1, Day 1, Tea: The lowdown as I see it

[Rabz]

Oram was simply unplayable today.
He kept on bowling dead accurate on the block hole consistently.
It was a McGrath-esque accuracy.

[AsifTheManRahman]

Mehrab Jr is our new minnow basher. All hail Mehrab, Nafees jawar por ijjot niye tanatani poira gechilo.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by Rabz
Oram was simply unplayable today.
He kept on bowling dead accurate on the block hole consistently.
It was a McGrath-esque accuracy.

They will fall. Work him, make him sweat. Two days of heat can do wonders on the third day!!

Tamim's rush of blood still bothers me. Expecting Junaid to make some noise in the second innings and may be, who knows we can really draw this match. I am starting to believe!!

[auntu]

This is a very good disciplined bowling performance by NZ bowlers.

[AsifTheManRahman]

Originally Posted by al Furqaan
bottom line is, today's play, taken in and of itself, offers no reason to be overly pessimistic or frustrated.

Indeed. One might have concerns over the run-rate during the first half of the day (and one wouldn't be at fault in doing so), but I think the approach and the intent of our batsmen (from what I gather from reading all the posts here - I was conveniently snoring away in bed while it all happened) make for a good starting point. They may not know how to score and hang on to their wickets at the same time, but if they can carry on the kind of intent that they seemed to have last night, they will learn to sneak in a couple of singles, doubles, triples and quadruples here and there in due time.

Now let's hope they don't get bundled out for 30 more tonight and 90 altogether in the second inning.

[Dhakablues]

Give some credits to Tamim/Rajin.. They did what they were asked to do.. lay the foundation and wear out the NZs.. yes, they probably couldve scored more but you have technically 4 more days of the game to score but 8 less wickets. So, dont think of Rajin to be a classless act,, remember that he as a better average than most of the members of the team. Yes, thats true,, Rajin has better averages than Ashraful or other super stars.

What Bangladesh has done,, is really the unexpected,, they avoided a 2.5 day affair but as the wise says,, all's well when the end is well. So, no reason to to be excited or dissapointed yet as its only the 1st day out. Chances are one of the two existing batsman will fall tomorrow morning.. but I sure would want to see either one of them scoring a ton and extend to more sessions..to re-establish ourselves as a viable test team.

[bujhee kom]

Originally Posted by al Furqaan
after the first session at 34-1, we had hopes of reaching 200-4 ideally.
in the end we got there (almost) 183-4, though the route was the not the conventional route.
the positives now are:
demoralizing NZ (of course not by much)
negating the new ball with no loss of wicket
unbeaten partnership means a fresh shot for the pair
we should target a total of 300
if rajib clicks, and with mash in form, a 300 total should be very competitive for the green kiwis.
we should have a match on our hand, especially if the wicket deteriorats.
our goal should be to bat 2 sessions tomorrow.

righto asad bhai. agree with everything you said, only thing is that i would like to see us cross 400. but you are absolutely right, we need to bat 2-3 sessions comfortably (being in control) tomorrow!

[Kabir]

First things first: Congrats to M&M. Both played excellent to raise the score.

Second: thanks to Tamim and Rajin for holding the wickets for so long. Haven't watched the game, so can't see what went wrong when they got out.

Third: If Ash scored anything more, that would be bonus. Nothing more to expect from him.

Fourth: $hit happens with openers. Even if Junaid is out for 5 golden ducks, I'll still keep him in the team. Perhaps I'll switch his position with Rajin. But that's about it.

Fifth: I don't think Rajin's inclusion has any negative impact in the team. I'ld take Rajin's firewall with less score over Aftab's low-wall with a quick few runs. If Rajin can hold the spot, give him the opening slot. Let him get the ball dirty before the next batsman gets into the middle. Use him, abuse him. But don't let him go. His spot in the team is cruicial. He's a perfect Test material. And he's hard working.

And finally: Please, DO NOT talk about giving a new Test cap. Imrul hasn't had his ODI debut yet, and there's no reason for us to push him into the middle and watch a monkey dance. It's not a joke anymore. Let this team mature...regardless of whether it fails or it's able to give us something. Only a mature team is able to give you success...not an immature bunch of kids like we have.

[AsifTheManRahman]

Originally Posted by Kabir
Fifth: I don't think Rajin's inclusion has any negative impact in the team.

For all I know, he's scored ten times as much as the captain and JS combined

[Kabir]

Originally Posted by AsifTheManRahman
For all I know, he's scored ten times as much as the captain and JS combined

Let me rephrase what I meant:

I don't think Rajin's inclusion into the Test squad will have ANY negative impact, even 2/3 years from now. Like T_E said, he's the perfect one to make the opponent bowlers sweat. That's all we need him for.

[RezOne]

Mission accomplished for Day 1. Our boys have to learn how to stand on wicket and just stay there. I'm not expecting big steps taken by our players. We have to learn, the hard way, how to play test. I think Tamim's and Rajin's innings will prove invaluable to them in the future. Test is a different game and requires different strategy. Now, for Day 2 the same thing must be done by both Mehrab and Mushy. Stay on wicket and get experience.

[AsifTheManRahman]

Originally Posted by Kabir
Let me rephrase what I meant:

I don't think Rajin's inclusion into the Test squad will have ANY negative impact, even 2/3 years from now. Like T_E said, he's the perfect one to make the opponent bowlers sweat. That's all we need him for.

Absolutely. I don't mind having him around in the test squad for a lengthy period of time. We need to stick to our players if we are going to get the best out of them. If someone can offer a dead bat to anything that the opponent dishes out, he might as well be in the side given the fragile nature of our line up.

We have enough players to avoid giving out test caps as often as we do today.

[Beamer]

Asad

There was no heated argument. At least not on my part. Must have missed it as I went to bed after lunch. Let me put it this way, I am pleasantly surprised with Mehrab and Mushy ( not that surprised ) and the way they batted. Test cricket is not all about stonewalling and scoreboard certainly is in play. I don't believe that top four can bat the way they did last night and expect it to work. It almost didn't. All of the players involved that sacrificed their scoring intent ended up not contributing much to the team score. Its the duo of Mehrab and Mushy, who counter attacked, and by that I mean, who showed positive intent, are smiling right now. But, this won't happen all the time. Sometimes you have to score to survive. Leave good balls but punish anything that is bad. Stray on the legs, punish!

[Pundit]

[quote=Spitfire_x86;756008]Although it should've been 240-250 for 4-5 wickets (by our standards, for other teams 300+), quote]

Which planet do you live in, Spitfire? Our standard is 250/4...?

I think people don't understand yet that we are a genuinely weak team that requires hard work.

[Pundit]

Originally Posted by Beamer
Asad

There was no heated argument. At least not on my part. Must have missed it as I went to bed after lunch. Let me put it this way, I am pleasantly surprised with Mehrab and Mushy ( not that surprised ) and the way they batted. Test cricket is not all about stonewalling and scoreboard certainly is in play. I don't believe that top four can bat the way they did last night and expect it to work. It almost didn't. All of the players involved that sacrificed their scoring intent ended up not contributing much to the team score. Its the duo of Mehrab and Mushy, who counter attacked, and by that I mean, who showed positive intent, are smiling right now. But, this won't happen all the time. Sometimes you have to score to survive. Leave good balls but punish anything that is bad. Stray on the legs, punish!

The top order did well. Ashraful should have scored runs..that's all that was missing.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by Beamer
Asad

There was no heated argument. At least not on my part. Must have missed it as I went to bed after lunch. Let me put it this way, I am pleasantly surprised with Mehrab and Mushy ( not that surprised ) and the way they batted. Test cricket is not all about stonewalling and scoreboard certainly is in play. I don't believe that top four can bat the way they did last night and expect it to work. It almost didn't. All of the players involved that sacrificed their scoring intent ended up not contributing much to the team score. Its the duo of Mehrab and Mushy, who counter attacked, and by that I mean, who showed positive intent, are smiling right now. But, this won't happen all the time. Sometimes you have to score to survive. Leave good balls but punish anything that is bad. Stray on the legs, punish!

I think I said this in another thread also.

1) NZ bowled extremely tight line. So the 1 run econ was not all created by stonewalling (Tamim-Rajin-Ash). The slip was waiting for them to make a mistake and they didn't.

2) Your understanding of test cricket is "winning only matters", and we are a top test cricketing nation or we should be.

+++

ie gula polapain manush. matro average age 22. Thik asey adding 2 more years for your satisfaction. Still not 27-30 year olds.

With a record of 1 out x #of test matches, most finishing within three days, what is there to do something different just so that we have a chance to draw?

+++

I think this is high time for you to support the strategy of wasting balls. At least opponent'der khaitey khailey result paitey hobey. And if they slip (their's is also in a transition) why not take advantage?

[Beamer]

T_E

I respect what you say usually. Let me have my say and please don't tell me what strategy I should or shouldn't support.

I like winning cricket. lets put it that way, you can lose playing winning cricket, but unless you play winning cricket, you will never win. Wasting bad balls is something I can't fundamentally support. What it does that it creates doubt about the particular batsman's self ability which inevitably leads to his downfall. If we must adopt this strategy for the top order test after test, then I suggest, we overhaul our batting card, to at least put the 'right' players for the job in hand. I would like then to put Ash and Tamim and no.5 and no.6. Let the top four do their job, which is to block, block and block, and keep the more able stroke makers for middle to late order. Do you at least agree? I like putting players in right places for the right job..

[Spitfire_x86]

[QUOTE=Pundit;756111]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86
Although it should've been 240-250 for 4-5 wickets (by our standards, for other teams 300+), quote]

Which planet do you live in, Spitfire? Our standard is 250/4...?

I think people don't understand yet that we are a genuinely weak team that requires hard work.

Our "one of the better days" standard.

[Murad]

Ora to dekhi NZ bowler der strike-rates er barota bajai ditase...

[Imtiaz]

I was abroad so didn't even follow on cricinfo. My understanding is Tamim / Rajin were dropped three times ! But holding out for so long is in itself a bonus. The cumulative heat will sap the NZ bowlers. If we survive the first 10 overs I believe runs could be had. This is an extremely long batting line-up. All bar Shahadat who can block. If we score upto 300-350 by tea time , yes, tea time, you never know what can happen.

[BD-Shardul]

Most of the people are for scoring runs and see no point blocking. May be you guys are right, but can you please explain me the difference between the triple duck that the CRAPPIEST ever player Saleh scored before today's innings and our SUPERSTAR Ash's last three test innings 2, 0, 4?

At least the crappy player can boast that he consumed more balls than the superstar in those three test innings.

[BD-Shardul]

Also, as Cricinfo reported, NZ was bowling with extremely tight line and length when Saleh and Tamim were batting.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by Beamer
T_E

I respect what you say usually. Let me have my say and please don't tell me what strategy I should or shouldn't support.

Come on man i thought we were tight!! Brothers!! I even decided to participate in NHL thread. Why can't I boss around here at BC? Tendu 12k run korsey, ami 12k post korsi, kono respect pabo na??? (Don't take my words from previous post literally. It was in light humor.)

Come on support the troops!!

Originally Posted by Beamer
I like winning cricket. lets put it that way, you can lose playing winning cricket, but unless you play winning cricket, you will never win. Wasting bad balls is something I can't fundamentally support. What it does that it creates doubt about the particular batsman's self ability which inevitably leads to his downfall. If we must adopt this strategy for the top order test after test, then I suggest, we overhaul our batting card, to at least put the 'right' players for the job in hand. I would like then to put Ash and Tamim and no.5 and no.6. Let the top four do their job, which is to block, block and block, and keep the more able stroke makers for middle to late order. Do you at least agree? I like putting players in right places for the right job..

We are in a total agreement. From A to Z.

Our boys are not up to the par yet. They don't know how to build an innings. That includes our best batsman Ashraful. Till they learn that, I would support any ab-jab strategy cooked up by our weird think tanks. Even if that is a semi-wrong approach.

Looks like I am Bangali Republican, lol.

[tiger_club]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86
There's no reason to be pleased if 2.5 hours of effort brings 44/4 in the 1st day of a test played in a batting friendly surface.

Spot on! I don't understand what sort of idiotic game plan they tried to execute.. game plan was not to lose wicket early and make the new ball old as possible.. they were getting 1 run per over.. at the end what happened? 43 over gone, they made 44/4.. there is a limit to the stupidity.. this is not the case here.. we should look at the test between IND/AUS, there are plenty to learn from them.. players should be more concern about their career than sticking to stupid game plan.. you play 20 overs make 20 runs and then get out playing silly ball.. that gave little for the team and for your own sake you should try to contribute as much you can.. what makes you think that if you make the new ball old and can make century playing 300 balls.. bowlers are not that dumb.. more dot balls they get, their confidence goes up, more frustration for the batsmen and here we go.. the best example we could ever give.. what can I say? We’re very lucky - Mehrab and Rahim saved the day for us from the unfortunate embarrassment..

[Imtiaz]

I did not follow the game. But given what I have read and gleaned from the scorecard and posts, I find it difficult that on a track which favours batting, scoring 2 runs off 35 balls looks like taking the piss ! Either like a sulking employee he is on a work-to-rule [ regarding team rules ] or he is simply a very un-intelligent cricketer. I suspect the latter. As someone wrote, either he is in first gear or in fifth.

However, the slowdown had one positive effect. It sapped out the Kiwi bowlers. And intelligent batting from Mehrab and Mushfiq has almost brought us to my best expectations [ 200/4 ]. If they can negotiate the first 10 overs, I believe this Kiwi attack is for the taking.