Asia Cup: 1st Real Challenge for Whatmore and Co.

[Rubu]

lets go back and see all the series we had since whatmore took over, in the perspective of what our teams gaol and our expectation was:

Australia tour: the very first tour since whatmore. Not only he did not have enough time to prepare, but also the opponent were to tough to handle. still we managed to get some practice match win and spent a very good unbeaten day that earned back much of bd's lost respect. But there was no expectation of winning any test or odi. so no question of real competition either.

Pakistan Tour: still on the stage of "indivisual improvement", and not enough time to build a really good team. team did good, but no win their either. one could be win was beyond expectations of players. who knows, probably that was the reason we could not get the last wicket. again, the target was not compitition, but improvement.

home tour england: first home series since whatmore. could not do as good as expected. but still not long enough time given. hard to say what the team's expectation was.

Zim tour: a reasonable time had be ellesped under whatmore. an odi win covered up the poor test performances. but that was still not a true measure of our strength as zim ranks just above us.

WI tour: the team is in a period of deprasion, also was tired from a long series against england. because the odi matches was short, we don't really know how they would do if they were full length matches. exceptional performance in first test but disaster in the second. is that all fast pitch? still, since we did not have experience in playing WI pitches and fast bowlers, we could not compete in full strength.

the point i'm trying to make is, we had some sort of problems in all the tour we had, one way or another. from oppoent too strong to not enough strong. from lack of time to unknown pitch and so on. BUT, we have no excuse now.

* we did spend over an year with whatmore.
* we know srilankan condition.
* we know the teams we are playing against.
* we had good practice sessions.
* we are going there two weeks ahead of time to play the maximum 3 practice matches and also to know the environment.
* we have a weak team to play.
* we have two team to play against (if we go to second round) who are not impossible to beat.

really we have no excuse. its time for tigers to come with some good show. not only smash HK nice and cool they need to do more than that.
it does not matter what the result against the 3 test playing nation will be. but, they their has to be this: second round matches against bangladesh sould look like any other match there (i.e ind v pak or pak v srilanka).

tigers, u have a big test ahead of u.

[jaga]

Very nice piece of writing. A little more elaboration would have been nicer.

I would support if it qualifies as a frontpage feature. Don't know what the moderators think.

p.s. I do not know the writer personally.

[Asif]

Good Piece of writting ...


Indeed bangladesh has a very tough competition ahead. I can imagine bangladesh beating honkkong in ease. Bangladesh has also the potentiallity to beat any of the three test giants taking part in the tournament. Again among those three nations - anyone can beat anyone and it will be unlikely to see any one team dominating the series. So, if they beat each other and some how (by hardwork or by fortunes strike) bangladesh up sets any one team, the over all result will be very intriguing. Therefore, I am just looking forward for hard compitition and a good display by tigers.

[crazyisland]

A good well thought posting Mr. Agent.

I agree this would be the first major test for us. I hoped they would have opened Javed and Faisal instead of Javed and Ash.

[Pundit]

A very intriguing synopsis, AgentMan !!

It appears that you have given consideable thought to the plot. All that is left is a pinch of success.

Its really heartening that we look to the BD team with more confidence, and hence expectation. Hopefully soon, MASRI will be able to join the team permanently, Mahmud ages beyond a fine specimen of Sonoma wine and leaves behind a worthy forerunner, Bashar scores a 100 1/4 tests, and Ash gives us the whirlwind opening that we all want within the first 15 overs.

Go BD.

[Pundit]

And since I will be in Dhaka for a while, I will get to see the games !!

[cricketfan]

BD will need to score around 250 runs in 50 overs to stand a realistic chance in ODI cup matches against major teams. It means that the BD batsmen will need to bat at a strike rate of 84.

Following is the strike rate and average of BD batsmen(Average in brackets):

Rafique 73.17( 14.31),
Ashraful 68.04( 15.28),
Mashud 50.28(17.61),
Bashar 56.74 (18.39),
Kapali 66.34(22.14),
Mahmud 68.14(13.41),
Omar 47.72(22.68),
Saleh 54.01(28.35),
Mushfiqur 53.26(16.81)

Strike rate shows the ability to score quickly, whereas average indicates how long a batsman can bat before losing his wicket.

As can be seen from the above, BD batsmen typically score at a strike rate of 60 at an average of 18. Unless they show huge improvements in the Asia Cup in both their strike rate and average, their score will typically continue to be in the region of 150 to 200 runs in 50 overs and they will continue to get bowled out within 50 overs.

It will need a Herculean effort from BD,make no mistake about it.

[200SX]

Good cricket analysis... tigers r now in tht stage whr they shudnt act like a participent team, they shud act like a compitent team.... they shudnt give away their match. they had enough time to practice n make themselves ready to win battle......this tournament is the perfect startin point to go up as Agent discribed above, so they shud go through this......hope tigers wont disappoint us...

wish to c a new era of bd cricket

[rockpundit]

All tho i agree the analysis is clever I dont think that stats always tell the whole story. You should keep in mind that these stats also include the scores at the beginning stages of the players career which are quite possibly not satisfactory

[TAIF]

I think the Bangladesh form book should be torn up for this Asia Cup.

[Navarene]

The price money of this Asia cup has increased four times than the last one. Price money of 2000 asia cup was around $50,000. This time the total amount has increased to $2,00,000. The champion and the runner up will get $60,000 and $40,000 respectively. Man of the tournament will be honored with a car.

Source

[cricketfan]

The Asia cup is being sponsored by Indian oil, a fortune 500 company which earned a revenue of $ 25,316 millions last year. The money being put up by the sponsor in the Asia cup is small change for them.

[sadhat]

And what can Bangladesh do? They almost won a Test in the West Indies, but beyond that, there are few signs that Whatmore has made much difference to a notoriously diffident side. But the process of becoming a contender from a minnow is a long one, and Whatmore has been down that road before, with Sri Lanka. Does he have enough talent available to repeat that process with them? Can Bangladesh cause an upset or two in this tournament? Well, maybe they can. But first, they must get past the even minnower talents of Hong Kong.

Amit Varma is managing editor of Wisden Cricinfo in India.

SOURCE