Bangladesh T20 Squad: A Preview

[WarWolf]

T20 is a game of full excitement and keeping the momentum going till the end. Every single position in the team is important and a single weaker player can ruin the whole show. The big question is "Is our team ready for this kind of challenge"?

Let's have a closer look at the team. The possible combination of the team can be...

1. Tamim Iqbal
2. Junaid Siddique / Shamsur Rahman
3. Mohammed Ashraful
4. Shakib Al Hasan
5. Mahmudullah Riad
6. Raqibul Hasan / Mithun Ali
7. Mushfiqur Rahim
8. Naeem Islam
9. Mashrafe Mortaza
10. Abdur Razzak
11. Rubel Hossain

Let's take a look the batting line up first.

Tamim Iqbal is an automatic choice as no.1 opening slot and seems to be in good touch. If Tamim can keep himself cool then we can expect a good show from him throughout the tournament.

The 2nd opening slot is a real place to worry about. Neither of the two options can be called a good choice. For last two years, we have been searching an opening partner for Tamim in all forms of the game. But still the quest is not over. As we have no other option left, my first preference will be Junaid for this position. If he fails in the today's practice match and in the tournament game against India then we can have a try with Shamsur Rahman in the very next game.

Ashraful seems to be in good touch. But you never can rely on him too much. His unique ways of throwing wickets continued in yesterday's game too. We can only hope him to do well, but never can expect him to play well on a regular basis.

Now comes the real star to watch out , Shakib Al Hasan. This man is a real treat to watch whatever he is doing; batting, bowling or fielding. BBC already tagged him as "the world's best all-rounder". He will be the main pillar of our success in the upcoming super event.

Mahmudullah Riad should occupy the 5th slot of batting line up. He seems to be in good rhythm as a batsman. He is not a big hitter but can score runs at a decent pace as he is a good improviser.

We have two options for slot 6. I would certainly go with Mithun Ali ahead of Raqibul. Raqibul is not a T20 material yet. Scoring 13 runs in 7 balls is much better than scoring 20 runs in 23 balls in this format of cricket.

Mushfiqur Rahim comes next. He is a slow starter. Once he middles few balls he can score some big shots too.

Naeem has the same problem as Mushfiqur. Yet we need him in the team as he is a good all-rounding option along with his wonderful fielding skills.

For the next position, I would prefer either of Mashrafee or Razzak depends on type of bowling. If it is spin then I would certainly go for Mashrafee. But if it's pace Razzak should be a better choice.

If you look in the batting line up carefully you can see we have a huge deficient of power hitting in the middle and late middle order. This is what caused us loosing yesterday's practice match against Australia. Therefore I cannot say that I am too happy with the squad selection.

Now come to bowling department. As the wickets seem to be completely flat there is no justification playing 3 pacers. Rasel doesn't seem to be in good touch and Shahadat is not a T20 material. Therefore we have to go with Mashrafee and Rubel.

Razzak should come in the team as an specialist spinner. Shakib will continue to impress as a bowler throughout the tournament. Riad also is in good touch. Naeem and Ashraful will be handy as slow spinning option.

I see nothing much to worry about the bowling. In fact, we have a more decent bowling attack then most of the teams in the tournament.

Fielding has been sloppy in the practice matches and needs a lot more work to be done. Still 3 days to go before the tournament starts. Hopefully the boys will be able to fix the problems with the field.

[auntu]

Originally Posted by WarWolf
T20 is a game of full excitement and keeping the momentum going till the end. Every single position in the team is important and a single weaker player can ruin the whole show. The big question is "Is our team ready for this kind of challenge"?

Let's have a closer look at the team. The possible combination of the team can be...

1. Tamim Iqbal
2. Junaid Siddique / Shamsur Rahman
3. Mohammed Ashraful
4. Shakib Al Hasan
5. Mahmudullah Riad
6. Raqibul Hasan / Mithun Ali
7. Mushfiqur Rahim
8. Naeem Islam
9. Mashrafe Mortaza
10. Abdur Razzak
11. Rubel Hossain

Let's take a look the batting line up first.

Tamim Iqbal is an automatic choice as no.1 opening slot and seems to be in good touch. If Tamim can keep himself cool then we can expect a good show from him throughout the tournament.

The 2nd opening slot is a real place to worry about. Neither of the two options can be called good choice. For last two years, we have been searching an opening partner for Tamim in all forms of the game. But still the quest is not over. As we have no other option left, my first preference will be Junaid for this position. If he fails in the today's practice match and in the tournament game against India then we can have a try with Shamsur Rahman in the very next game.

Ashraful seems to be in good touch. But you never can rely on him too much. His unique ways of throwing wickets continued in yesterday's game too. We can only hope him to do well, but never can expect him to play well on regular basis.

Now comes the real star to watch out , Shakib Al Hasan. This man is a real treat to watch whatever he is doing; batting, bowling or fielding. BBC already tagged him as "the world's best all-rounder". He will be the main pillar of our success in the upcoming super event.

Mahmudullah Riad should occupy the 5th slot of batting line up. He seems to be in good rhythm as a batsman. He is not a big hitter but can score runs at a decent pace as he is a good improviser.

We have two options for slot 6. I would certainly go for Mithun Ali ahead of Raqibul. Raqibul is not a T20 material yet. Scoring 13 runs in 7 balls is much better than scoring 20 runs in 23 balls in this format of cricket.

Mushfiqur Rahim comes next. He is a slow starter. Once he middles few balls he can score some big shots too.

Naeem has the same problem as Mushfiqur. Yet we need him in the team as he is a good all-rounding option along with his wonderful fielding skills.

For the next position, I would prefer either of Mashrafee or Razzak depends on type of bowling. If it is spin then I would certainly go for Mashrafee. But if it's pace Razzak should be a better choice.

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If you look in the batting line up carefully you can see we have a huge deficient of power hitting in the middle and late middle order. This is what caused us loosing yesterday's practice match against Australia. Therefore I cannot say that I am too happy with the squad selection. 


Now come to bowling department. As the wickets seem to be completely flat there is no justification playing 3 pacers. Rasel doesn't seem to be in good touch and Shahadat is not a T20 material. Therefore we have to go with Mashrafee and Rubel.

Razzak should come in the team as an specialist spinner. Shakib will continue to impress as a bowler throughout the tournament. Riad also is in good touch. Naeem and Ashraful will be handy as slow spinning option.

I see nothing much to worry about the bowling. In fact, we have a more decent bowling attack then most of the teams in the tournament.

Fielding has been sloppy in the practice matches and needs a lot more work to be done. Still 3 days to go before the tournament starts. Hopefully the boys will be able to fix the problems with the field.

Nice writing Sadi bhai...yes I also agree with the power hitting probe.

[kalpurush]

Great work, Sadi. Hope team management reads your thread and capitalize from it.

[WarWolf]

Thanks Auntu bhai and Obayed bhai.

[cricman]

Razzak won't play

Mushfiqur Rahim comes next. He is a slow starter. Once he middles few balls he can score some big shots too.

This is what happens, He can charge spinners thats all, usally he'll middle the 1st 2 and than this

[WarWolf]

Originally Posted by cricman
Razzak won't play

Why?

[cricman]

Razzak should be practicing his new action in BD, not trying to get it right vs India.

Siddons hinted he would try the best possible team against Australia and if that was the case, left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak, the man-of-the-match in Bangladesh’s last Twenty20 international, would have little chance.
Razzak was rested in the latest warm-up match against Scotland and if Siddons and Ashraful go by their plan, there is every chance that his rest can be prolonged.

Instead of two specialist spinners, both Ashraful and Siddons are in favour of playing Bangladesh’s all three main seamers Mashrafee bin Murtaza, Syed Rasel and Rubel Hossain in the match against Australia.

‘Mash needs more match practice and we need to see how Rubel plays against stronger opposition. So they both will play,’ said Siddons adding he is still open about the position of Rasel.

‘He [Rasel] looked good in previous matches. But we need to really see if he can generate swing in this condition. If he can, he will play against India. Otherwise, we may take a spinner,’ he said.

[tiger_club]

selection panel will decide who will play and not.. I want to see the result

[BD-Shardul]

I wish Suhrawordi Shuvo was in the team.

[Murad]

Originally Posted by BD-Shardul
I wish Suhrawordi Shuvo was in the team.

Why? Why is he so special?

[yaseer]

Originally Posted by cricman
Razzak won't play

This is what happens, He can charge spinners thats all, usally he'll middle the 1st 2 and than this

I totally agree.....only big shot Mushy has is the slog sweap over mid-wicket against spinners/slow mediuam pacers. I don't see him succeeding against bowlers with good pace.
Also he comes down the order and always gonna face the fast bowlers of the opposite side in the later overs.

Again, Mithun has not been tested yet. So, its gonna be a gamble also to put him against India straight away. Tough decision to make for the management.

[yaseer]

Originally Posted by muradnyc
Why? Why is he so special?

I think as Razzak is not doing that well as he used to do, Shuvo is missed a bit more.

[Gowza]

it seems silly to me to bring in 2 new players into the national squad and not even test them in the warm-ups, warm-ups is the place to test the newcomers and give them some experience in case they are needed in the tournament proper.

as for the starting XI for the tournament, i think you have to go with experience here, thanks to selectors/management we haven't been able to see enough of the newcomers and they haven't been given the experience to throw them in the team during the tournament. with that being the case the batting line-up is straight forward. bowling wise it has to be mash, rasel, rubel then the allrounders shakib, riyad, naeem. razzak doesn't look like he'll do any better than the 3 allrounders so no point in playing him ahead of them.

as for shuvo it is ashame he didn't make the squad, but nothing we can do about it now.

[WarWolf]

Originally Posted by Gowza
it seems silly to me to bring in 2 new players into the national squad and not even test them in the warm-ups, warm-ups is the place to test the newcomers and give them some experience in case they are needed in the tournament proper.

as for the starting XI for the tournament, i think you have to go with experience here, thanks to selectors/management we haven't been able to see enough of the newcomers and they haven't been given the experience to throw them in the team during the tournament. with that being the case the batting line-up is straight forward. bowling wise it has to be mash, rasel, rubel then the allrounders shakib, riyad, naeem. razzak doesn't look like he'll do any better than the 3 allrounders so no point in playing him ahead of them.

as for shuvo it is ashame he didn't make the squad, but nothing we can do about it now.

The squad didn't impress me at all. If you look at it carefully you will clearly see the selectors lacked vision. They had been playing almost same squad for ODI and test for last couple of months. Now it's same with T20 too. No other team in the world would stick with Raqibul for T20. But our selectors don't understand the difference.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by WarWolf
The squad didn't impress me at all. If you look at it carefully you will clearly see the selectors lacked vision. They had been playing almost same squad for ODI and test for last couple of months. Now it's same with T20 too. No other team in the world would stick with Raqibul for T20. But our selectors don't understand the difference.

if raqibul can strike at about 120 in t20s i'll be fine with him being in the squad because imo those sort of players are important to a t20 team. i still think nazmus sadat should have been picked though, shuvo as well and maybe ziaur or one of the other pacers should have been picked ahead of shahadat.

[One World]

I think Siddons doing the right thing. If best ranked bowlers fail to earn wicket or check runs it is more concern about the team effort of fielding and neatness of the bowling itself. No point blaming the batting which has been more than impressive so far.

[al-Sagar]

i think naeem should bat up, and for me no place for rakibul and mushfik, let mithun do the keeping, dont get worried by his mistakes of the scotland t20 match. that was an off day.

i will go with

tamim
junaed
ashraful
shakib
riyadh
naeem
shuvo
mithun
mashrafe
rasel/razzaque
rubel

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by offstump
i think naeem should bat up, and for me no place for rakibul and mushfik, let mithun do the keeping, dont get worried by his mistakes of the scotland t20 match. that was an off day.

i will go with

tamim
junaed
ashraful
shakib
riyadh
naeem
shuvo
mithun
mashrafe
rasel/razzaque
rubel

you prefer junaid over raqibul? maybe the junaid from the last t20 WC should play ahead of raqibul but since then raqibul has shown to be the better batsman. it's not like junaid is some super aggressive power hitter either, he has a strike rate of under 50 in both tests and ODIs. raqibul has a better ODI strike rate from more matches than junaid and is also more consistent.

[Nafi]

Both Raqib and Junaid are horrible at playing bouncers or any short ball for that matter.

[RazabQ]

You are missing two big changes
1) Change in venue - Saffers pitches have something for the bowlers and the grounds are bigger ('cept for the bullring). Witness IPL 2009's lower scores
2) Our two biggest scrooges have lost form from injury/action related layoffs. The two Ra's Razzak and Rasel were miserly in the 1st edition.

Our bowling - based on practice matches to date - and its inability to contain pure hitters on flat-track will see us having to beat Ireland to go through. Beating India's gonna be a toughie ...

[hishpishal]

I wish the middle & lower order get their feet nailed to the legstump guard & hit from there. not trying to give room every ball & missing them when they're outside off stump. it's more likely that they were afraid of the faster balls & trying to avoid them by moving to the legside. siddons should have more net sessions with the lower order batsmen giving them strict instruction to stay put & hit through the line ....rather than manufacture shots each & every ball....it was school cricket after 15 overs. even the free hits it seemed the bowler was enjoying......

[SohalBD]

i think todays gona play like this, tamim, junaid/ali,ash,saqib,riad,raqib,naeem,mash,rubel, shahadat,razzak

[moulvi_b]

what about Shahadat ?
I think he should be given a chance instead of Rasel today.

[WarWolf]

The second opening option is really terrible. I am not sure why they are still relying on Junaid. For last two years he hasn't shown any thing special at all.

[Umar]

We Need to DELETE TWO names from this Squad.

1. junaid or zunaid (whatever really) - good for nothing
2. shahadat hussain- big box of noise