Ever since Bangladesh was granted test status in 2000, they haven?t won any of the 19 tests they have played. 18 of those were defeats and 13 of those coming by an innings. Despite having won the second warm-up match against CBCA, the Bangladeshi players cannot afford to take the match lightly. The next warm-up match for Bangladesh will be against the Northern Territory Chief Minister?s XI in Australia?s newest Test ground, the Marrara Oval in Darwin.
Bangladesh will be playing their next test against Australia in the newest test venue in the beautiful North Australian city of Darwin. Darwin was just cleared by the ICC about a month ago to host the test matches. Another interesting thing about the Australians is that they are not taking this series lightly and are fielding a full-strength team for the test matches. Now, can the Bangladeshi batsmen be able to live up to their potential of fighters? Well, they never have done it and the so-called "Tigers" have never been able to show their full strength to the world.
Although Bangladesh now have a world class coach in Dev Whatmore, the Bangladeshi fans cannot expect too much too soon from Whatmore. After all, even Whatmore is an Human-Being like us. There are a lot of differences between the current Bangladesh team and the Sri Lankan team 10 years ago, on whom Whatmore was able to make them world-champions in 1996. Even if the present Bangladesh team were to play a match against the Sri Lankan team 10 years ago, still Bangladesh would have lost that match. At best what Bangladesh can hope from Whatmore is to help each Bangladeshi player in the national team to really discover his full strength and play to his full potential. The Bangladeshi players have never been able to play it to their full potential and most impotently, the cricketers lack patience. They always tend to go for rash shots, be it Test or ODI. What really got to be done here is to develop patience in the batsmen, so that they are at least able to bat a full day in a test match without losing more than 5 wickets.
Having said that, at best we can hope from Whatmore to discover each player?s hidden talent and try and develop it. Maybe some batsmen could be a useful bowler or some bowler in the team could be a useful batsmen. Most importantly, the fielding part needs to be improved. The Bangladeshi players have always been guilty of dropping catches and misfielding, and this helps the opposition team pile on 30-40 more runs than what they would have. See what Kenya was able to do with their fielding in the world cup. The players also need to believe that they can win the match and should go for it like tigers, no matter whosoever team they are playing against. They really have a defeatist attitude at present and this has to be removed. If the players themselves believe that they can win, they will be able to enjoy that match and also give their 100% in that match to be able to win. Who knows, this might happen. After all, stranger things have happened in cricket! All the best to Dev Whatmore and the Bangladeshi cricketers.