Lack of FC/Test Cricket and Lack of Inferior Opponents is what is hurting us.

[cricman]

Might as well start off with the proven theory of Playing Weaker Teams, It helped us in the build up of the World Cup and even the 20/20 event. Whenever we play against "Inferior Teams" our players play different even responsible cricket. I think it's cause of confidence, a player like Shahriar Nafees steps into the crease and sees this No Name bowler and automatically in his head knows he's better than him "He scored 138 vs Shane Warne and Brett Lee", that feeling in it's self takes away the any bad thoughts, being nervous etc. Obviously there is a large margin of error against the "Inferior teams". If you play a good number of games against these teams you'll get confident and you'll get that winning feeling, a little swagger, know how it feels to bat 50 overs and when time comes to play the big boys that Inferiority Complex goes away The Ashraful 158* had the same effect. Than you see things like what happened in the World Cup happen in a span of 3 weeks We beat New Zealand, India, and South Africa and played at a high level vs England and the West Indies. Than even the series against India thought we competed very well for the most part.

Than we played Sri Lanka and I have a theory about them as well and that never play them (they whip us real bad and than they taunt us as well) they use us as in there. "Inferior Oppenent Theory"

This is only a Stop Gap solution and It'll never take us to Becoming a Top Plight Cricket Nation.

I guess were only playing Tests against South Africa this year.

First of all let me say that NCL is pure crap so Is Club Cricket , It's a light switch for the National Team players But the NCL does have a purpose, established First Class cricketers Ash, Tamim, Mushifiq, SN (Sadly we don't have that many more who could bat in test Cricket at the moment) they can turn flip the on switch in there brains when ever they want (Sadly I don't know why it's not always on) cause when they care domestically they cash in Internationally.

How did Tamim break in to the National Team at such a young age?

Name                Mat    I  NO  Runs   HS     Ave     SR 100 50   Ct St Team
Tamim Iqbal           4    7   1   469  118   78.16 103.30   2  2    1  - CHTGNG

By now everyone knows how Ash got back into National team so I won't go there and even if there not focused they usually average in the 30's anyway. The Point I'm trying to make is OD cricket is not the place to get your form back. Your going to criticize Ash for trying to take advantage of the Powerplays when it's the right thing to do and is the way the game is played. But how are going to ask the Top 3 to hit/Slog there way back into form, when they should be at the crease as long as as possible but the Run Rates are very important.

FC cricket is best way to get your form back, Run Rates are irrelevant and after seeing off 30/40 deliveries your timing and form comes back and than you can turn it on, you get your confidence going. You can't even see off 15 deliveries in OD cricket with out hurting your team.

If you can't or not even attempt to Bat 130 overs @ 3 an over, no sense in asking a team to bat 50 overs @ 5.5 an over. Cause they will fail more times against established teams.

Even when getting trounced in Test Cricket, winning a session or 2 builds confidence for the shorter versions of the game.

I love the English County Tour for the A team I just Believe everyone should go, the players that go have an advantage in the future tours. How is Ash going to prepare for Australia playing in Picnic Birmingham League One Day League I'm sure he'll average 100 Rainhill didn't help him, where Tamim and Sakib get to face Dale Steyn in an FC match?

Play as much FC cricket as possible, Unofficial 4 day matches what ever. Send them places to play in Remember There used to be annual Zimbabwe A vs Bangladesh A 4 day matches where Rajib, SN, Rasel, Tamim got to star an correct there form . I'm not saying cricket 24/7 but play 4 day "challenger" matches a month before an Important tour not a week before the opposing team arrives. An Average International Cricketer in a 12 month Season gets 3-5 months off ... theres plenty of time to improve your game and still enjoy life.

[Spitfire_x86]

What about the plain old "lack of talent" theory? We all assume our players to be super talented based on some good U-19 team performance. But none of our U-19 teams had standout individual performers. Our U-19 success has been mostly result of good teamwork. We never had someone like Shikhar Dhawan or Tim Southee in our U-19 teams.

India U-19 vs BD U-19 in 2004 U-19 World Cup, Dhaka

[Eshen]

Lack of self belief is obviously hurting us. Playing matches against Zimbabwe before the world cup had apparently helped our players, especially young and inexperienced ones, to gain confidence. But will the same trick work twice?

If you look at the Ireland series, playing a good knock during that tour may have helped Mahmudullah to do well in the following ODI series in Pakistan, but the same did not happen to more experienced players like Shahriar, Ashraful, or Aftab.

I think the main problem in our team is we are poor in sustaining any development. Another problem is most of the players have not developed professional attitudes towards the sport. It's a mentality thing. Having a whimsical and weak minded person like Ashraful as a role model obviously does not help our young generation in this aspect. We need more players like Sakib who may not be much talented, but has the right mentality for the sport at this level.

[Gowza]

there's a whole bunch of problems. lack of confidence in themselves, lack of commitement, lack of confidence in BD cricket from other cricket nations, domestic structure, competitiveness.

the talent is reasonable, it's definitely on the NZ and WI level, it's just their players are more committed and apply themselves much better. why have WI been able to turn themselves around so quickly? they got a new coach just like BD yet WI are now a much better team than BD when a short while ago they were on a similar level.

i think a big part of it is player commitment, player work ethic, coach work ethic. the player's attitude imo is wrong. the national players seem to think they can take it easy when playing NCL or club cricket and this attitude imo really hurts their international performance.

form isn't something you can just turn on, if it was ponting wouldn't have been in his recent slump because no player wants to be in bad form, they always want to be performing well (at least the players who really want it always want to be performing).

now for the coaches, JS, he's a long way from home but seriously he knew that when he took the job, stop taking vacations back to australia or wherever he's taking them. the team needs him right now and he's just leaving them to fend for themselves. atm all he does is run a preparation camp and attends the series matches. he needs to be coaching the player's in-between these things. JS needs to do significant research on a lot of players, study their games, and know all the options. the other thing is the coach needs to have passion for the team that he's coaching or at least for cricket as a whole in the country for the team he's coaching (in this case it's Bangladesh cricket). this way the coach will give 100% and give even more if necessary.

now the BCB. the BCB need to need to figure out a solid structure and what will work for BD cricket. should they have multiple comps? or should they just have one big competition? either way they need to make it a lot more professional. this means good facilities, good professional umpires, good professional coaches and professional players. personally i don't think paying the players more is necessarily the answer for getting them to improve. think of it this way, if they do nothing but get paid more they're going to continue to do nothing because they didn't have to do anything to get the pay rise. the other option is this, pay them just enough and then only the ones who really want to be playing cricket will stick around and play. if this happens working hard is a matter of living standards and i'm sure this would have to be motivation for them. even in australia until recently, state players didn't earn enough from cricket to support them financially, a lot of them still had to work an everyday job and even now they only earn a decent living and that's if they have a state contract, if they don't have that they're completely on their own financially. just enough at NCL level should mean only people who want to be there will be there and those people will work harder to get a national contract because that national contract means they can live purely off cricket and obviously if they've stuck around then they really want it and those players tend to just have a better work ethic.

yeah you might lose some talents, but if the talent doesn't want to be there anyway then they're not going to work hard enough. and if they don't work hard enough they won't achieve what they should achieve. you want players who want to be there 100%, that way they'll give their 100% no matter the circumstances.

this doesn't solve all the problems though, there's still the problem that once players get a national contract that they'll take it easy once they get it. well 6 month contracts might be the answer, if players know they're contract gets re-evaluated in only 6 months they're more likely to work hard to keep it. if you give them a year they might think they can take it easy for the first 6 months then apply themselves.

as for role models, what you need is a hard working passionate coach with a great work ethic and a captain and vice captain who also work very hard.

these are just suggestions but this is where i'd start. the BCB needs to sit down by themselves, work out a game plan for each aspects of cricket in Bangladesh e.g. coaches, players, domestic structure. then they need to sit down with everyone (coaches and players included) and explain the situation and their expectations from the various participating groups and then they need to implement it all.

just my 2 cents, but this is a frustrating subject as a lot of this seems like pretty basic stuff that should already be in the setup and working or on it's way to working. sorry for the long post.

[Mahmood]

I have been saying this for last 8 yrs now. We need at least 4 first class tournaments.

Curently we have the national one based on areas of the country (ex: Dhaka, Chittagong).
One can be done with the popular clubs of the country (ex: Mohammedan, Abahoni).
One can be done with the Office teams (ex: Biman, Aktel)
One can be done with the top players (A vs B vs C)

We should also ensure 3-4 first class tournaments for each age group.

Only then we can rise as a cricket superpower. There is no other way.

[smashyboy]

No offence West Indies was never on the same level of BD. Players like Chanderpaul is equal to 10 bangladeshi batsmen. Sarwan, Gayle are world class batsmen.

[Gowza]

i'd say go with one first XI one-day tournament and one first XI FC tournament. if you want more cricket then create a 2nd XI tournament. so you'd have your current 6 NCL teams playing the NCL tournament but much longer than it currently is, then you'd have a 2nd XI of those 6 NCL teams in another tournament playing each other (playing both one-day and 3 day matches).

i mean you want quality not quantity. stick with one 6 team tournament for each format to begin with and if the standard gets high enough you can start creating more teams.

also, each of the big cities should have an academy each. this way players go from u19 cricket straight into either academy coaching/team or into 2nd XI cricket. the academies could also play a few matches against each other.

i say do it like this 1. grade cricket (1st grade is the best but you can have as many grades as you want - each city should have a grade system) 2. 2nd XI cricket (playing for an NCL 2nd XI team) 3. 1st XI NCL cricket.

so players move up the grades to first grade, once they perform in first grade they gain 2nd XI selection and if they perform there they get to play for a 1st XI NCL team. you can even have other tournaments which are below grade cricket if you want. but each level should be a step up in standard and thus the amount of players who can qualify/good enough for each step up in level should lessen as you move from grade 6 to grade 1 to 2nd XI cricket to first XI cricket and then to A team cricket and national team cricket.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by smashyboy
No offence West Indies was never on the same level of BD. Players like Chanderpaul is equal to 10 bangladeshi batsmen. Sarwan, Gayle are world class batsmen.

yes in terms of output you'd be correct, but WI have more developed and better developed talent than Bangladesh has. for example if ashraful was developed properly he'd be as good as any of the WI batsman. that's the difference between BD and teams like WI and NZ and other top 8 teams, BD can't develop their players nearly as well as the other top 8 teams can. it's not a lack of talent, it's a lack of developement. i'm not saying they have the talent of australia or india but BD has enough talent, which if developed properly can compete consistently with all of the top 8 teams.

[smashyboy]

Originally Posted by Gowza
yes in terms of output you'd be correct, but WI have more developed and better developed talent than Bangladesh has. for example if ashraful was developed properly he'd be as good as any of the WI batsman. that's the difference between BD and teams like WI and NZ and other top 8 teams, BD can't develop their players nearly as well as the other top 8 teams can. it's not a lack of talent, it's a lack of developement. i'm not saying they have the talent of australia or india but BD has enough talent, which if developed properly can compete consistently with all of the top 8 teams.

Test cricket is a totally different animal. It requires heavy amount of scoring at the first class level or you should be playing alongside who have that kind of experience. I would like to know what is the highest individual score by any BD batsman at first class level.

[AsifTheManRahman]

Originally Posted by Mahmood
One can be done with the popular clubs of the country (ex: Mohammedan, Abahoni).
One can be done with the Office teams (ex: Biman, Aktel)
One can be done with the top players (A vs B vs C)

I like that, especially the fourth one. It is very important to have the top 40 or so in the country play against each other on a regular basis to strengthen competition among the door-knockers and the existing national-teamers.

[lamisa]

bd teamer sohel bhaire bhara kora uchit.

[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by smashyboy
Test cricket is a totally different animal. It requires heavy amount of scoring at the first class level or you should be playing alongside who have that kind of experience. I would like to know what is the highest individual score by any BD batsman at first class level.

313* by a raqibul hasan - yet to debut in tests.

a few 200+ scores here and there, including 261 by ashraful.

talent is certainly there...otherwise we wouldn't even get the once in a blue moon events (ash's 158*, aftab 82 from 82, SN's 138, shahadat's 6-27) all done against top 8 teams.

problem is there is no accountability - if a player plays such an innings he's got a free ride for the next 12-24 months. and we don't have the backups as of yet to change it.

actual the talent model is paradoxical. guys like ashraful, aftab, tamim have no shortage of batting ability. there aren't shots those guys can't play, and there aren't balls that they can't score off of (barring that rare unplayable delivery). in this sense bangladesh have as much talent as any of the top 8 sides. International cricket is won with application since everyone is ultra-talented. we have a few guys with talent but no application.

at the same time, beyond those 4 or 5 batsmen, bangladesh have a huge drop off in talent. this is where we are far behind even West Indies or New Zealand. until we can have at least 10-12 solid batsmen, we're not going to start scoring 400 in tests on a routine basis. and that is directly related to the amount of accountability we can bring to the batting lineup.

[BD-Shardul]

BD team is nowhere close to WI, specially in terms of batting. There Shivnaraine Chanderpaul alone is enough to fight against whole BD.

Originally Posted by al Furqan
problem is there is no accountability - if a player plays such an innings he's got a free ride for the next 12-24 months. and we don't have the backups as of yet to change it.

If people do not make themselves accountable to their conscience, nothing can make them accountable. The situation will remain "jei lau sei kodu'

[Tigers_eye]

ehteshamul koi? This is where you put forth your two cents.

+++

1. Mine is decentralize. Give power to the divisions. Make two more intl fields in Barisal and Sylhet. Let them run their own show. You will see more local tournaments.

2. Be creative and divide the six teams in two groups (east-west, north-south which ever way one wants). Each team plays more games against their conference opponents. At the end of the season let the leaders play best of three finals. the others would jockey for their position in the standing as well. 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6. That way two teams from same division can even play in the finals.

Each division should have 3 sets of teams in the long run. age group U-19, their version of A team and their divisional team.

[al Furqaan]

all these schemes are pretty things, but unfortunately, they won't speed up the "process". this is because its a circular problem. our team is weak because our players aren't dedicated enough. our players aren
t dedicated because there is no accountability. there is no accountability because there are no quality backups with age or experience. there are no experienced backups because we're a nation with a <10 year cricket history. we have a short history because we're a weak team (and/or vice versa).

its gonna take BD at least 10 years to start being competitive, with or without the current bunch. hopefully by 15 or 20 years (2023-2028) BD will be on par with top 8. provided we don't lose test and ODI status first.

no doubt BCB has handeled the situation less than perfectly, but even if BCB had managed everything with 100% skill and efficiency, i doubt our team would be markedly better. this is a natural process which can't be rushed. talent comes first, only then will a person realize how to use it. for a person with no talent, its pretty easy to say "i'd use it wisely like this..." everyone's gotta crawl before they can walk.

we got test status for free basically. we weren't even premature. giving us test status now would have been premature. in the end i feel that test status will have accelerated our development, but it will still take 10-20 more years.

had BD remained an associate after 99 WC, we wouldn't even be where we are now until 2050 or so.

[Gowza]

i have the belief that the current crop by the end of their careers can at least be solid international players. and by that i mean all of the batsmen being able to average 30+ (or playing to a level in which they would have averaged 30+ had the start of their careers not been so poor e.g. ashraful, aftab etc), the bowlers averaging under 33 or at a stretch under 35, the keeper being competent in the keeping department and averaging 25-30 with the bat and the allrounders averaging under 35 with the ball and 25-30 with the bat.

i think this is realistic and i think this will be competitive. the talent is definitely there to manage the standards i just mentioned and a few of the young ones (shakib, tamim etc) look like they're on their way to managing this. but al Furqaan brings up some good points, it may well take 10-20 years. but as long as the talent is there there's always a chance.

[BANFAN]

Originally Posted by Mahmood
I have been saying this for last 8 yrs now. We need at least 4 first class tournaments.

Curently we have the national one based on areas of the country (ex: Dhaka, Chittagong).
One can be done with the popular clubs of the country (ex: Mohammedan, Abahoni).
One can be done with the Office teams (ex: Biman, Aktel)
One can be done with the top players (A vs B vs C)

We should also ensure 3-4 first class tournaments for each age group.

Only then we can rise as a cricket superpower. There is no other way.

I some how always thought this kind of different tournaments as not so helpful. Every kind of tournament has a different management and a player has to just fool them for a few month/weeks and then it's another tournament & another management.

Instead, if the players were playing only on one team like, say Chittagong/Barisal division. Let's have all kinds of matches (Three tournaments; 4 day/ODI / 20-20) in that divisional circuit. Let this be mandatory for all the national team players. So the performance of this tournament could be a deciding factor for sellection in the National squad.

Prem League/Office league can continue, and that should not be mandatory for the national team players, so you might find a different set of players playing in these tournament, where from the Divisional circuits can pick players.

Foreign players may be allowed in all tournaments, but in the divisional circuit they must have strict quality control policies.

[al Furqaan]

i beg to disagree.

bangladesh have proven time and again that they are simply too good for minnows (or minnows are too bad for them), but too weak for top 8 due to what i'd like to call "top 8 ischemic attack" which is basically a stroke which occurs only when facing non zimbabwean or non irish bowlers. hence the innovatively brainless ways to get out - my personal favorite, aftab's reverse sweep straight to akmal with asking rate well managed.

whitewashing irealand 3-0 and the subsequent Pakistani disaster is proof enough of my words.

bangladesh should definitely play a series or 2 per year against minnows as our duty as well as too get some big wins in. but until our batting is responsible, nothing will happen.

if the batsmen were responsible, bangladesh would have already won 4-5 games against top 8 sides since the world cup. this has nothing to do with minnow games or not. if playing minnows was sure-fire way to greatness, afghanistan should win the 2011 world cup.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by al Furqaan
...
bangladesh should definitely play a series or 2 per year against minnows as our duty as well as too get some big wins in. but until our batting is responsible, nothing will happen...

You meant to say losses, correct? Whasss aa!! whasss aaap!!

[Gowza]

also when it comes to one-day cricket and playing the minnows. instead of having a 2 team tournament e.g. BD vs ireland it should be a 3 team tournament which includes BD A.

[cricman]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_x86
What about the plain old "lack of talent" theory? We all assume our players to be super talented based on some good U-19 team performance. But none of our U-19 teams had standout individual performers. Our U-19 success has been mostly result of good teamwork. We never had someone like Shikhar Dhawan or Tim Southee in our U-19 teams.

India U-19 vs BD U-19 in 2004 U-19 World Cup, Dhaka

Tamim and Sakib were standouts in the U-19's when they were in.

[insideedge]

A player like Shikhar Dhawan , who was player of the tournament in 2004 U-19 world cup, has yet to break into the Indian team, despite doing very well in domestic tournaments, and also in the recently concluded IPL.

This shows the difference in gap between u-19 and FC, and also between FC and test matches. it is naively believed by many here that u-19 standard is similar to test standard, which is sadly not the case.

If some players do well in U-19 tournaments, it does not prove anything. It does not make him a first class player, leave alone making him a test player. Indian u-19 players do even better in u-19 world cups, but that does not get them test spots automatically. In fact, they have to struggle to get into first class teams.

Similar is the case in other test playing nations too.

[crikfreak]

our team does not lack talent.. they might mnot be superstars but they definitely have talent.. they lack confidence and determination.. playing against minnows helped us a lot in the world cup.. i wonder if it'll work again..

[BANFAN]

Our players also lack vital team and individual skills in match environment. I think playing more against the Weaker teams will give them the chance to develop thsoe skills in relatively less pressure conditions and off course add confidence and self belief.