BanglaCricket Article

"The Bangladeshi players has little time in their hands to prepare for another tough opponent in Pakistan."

"Except for Habibul Bashar Sumon, none of the batsmen are showing any sign that they even comprehend how pathetic they are. The old excuse of inexperience is also getting too rusty for our taste. After 10 tests, you would expect the team to show some improvement. In reality, we have gone from bad to worse and still plummeting."

Does all these sound familiar? Whatever you have read above, is not written by me, nor is it written recently.

It was written during Pakistan's tour of Bangladesh in the year 2002.

One year has past since then, and yet nothing seem to have changed. The only improvement mentioned in that article that is different is that Mashrafee Bin Murtoza is fit now and has made a name for himself during Bangladesh's last tour of Australia. Whether he will also make a name for himself during the Pakistan tour starting from tomorrow, remains to be seen.

As said above, Habibul Bashar is still our notable performer. Compared to his stats against Pakistan, other players' stats are not worth mentioning. In the bowling department, things do not seem to be as good. Monjurul Islam, the only test match bowler to have some sort of experience playing against Pakistan, is starting to become an irregular name in the test side.

Tushar Imran in the one day series can hope to perform considering his good record against Pakistan in the one dayers.

Teamwise, Bangladesh usually was defeated in big margins along with low scores of 87 or 94 all out in ODIs. Bangladesh can improve on that as well as in test cricket since Bangladesh has never been able to get past 200 in 6 occassions.

In short, there are a lot of room for improvement for Bangladesh, but the fact remains that the batsman are still weak in playing spin, especially leg spin and the bowlers are still vulnerable on batting paradise wickets. Not to mention that this time too, Bangladesh is playing Pakistan tired like the last time when they faced the same team in Bangladesh after playing against New Zealand.