After some very poor batting in the Chittagong test, the Bangladesh team is again showing a poor batting performance in the 1st ODI of the 3 match one day series against England.
After that test match, coach Dave Whatmore was very protective of the players. He told that the players need the support of the Bangladeshi fans at such a time. He also did not get angry at their performance after the 2nd test.
But we all know that Dave Whatmore has been the Bangladesh coach for only about three months now. He doesn't know the players and he doesn't know their mentality.
Sometimes they need to be scolded, prated, reproached or abused. In pure bengali word, they need all the JHARIS that they can get.
At one stage Bangladesh was 50 for 1, from which position there was a big collapse and they are now 66 for the loss of 7 wickets. Yes, you have read it correctly, from fifty for one to sixty six for seven wickets. And all this was after winning the toss and electing to bat first.
Three middle order batsman scored ducks including the bad boy of the test series, Alok Kapali. The others are Khaled Mahmud who got a promotion at number six and Mushfiqur Rahman.
What is worst that three batsman among the seven have given away easy wickets to the England spinner Ashley Giles. It is a limitation of the Bangladesh batsman that they have this weakness against short pitched bowling. But why give wickets to a spinner? Rajin Saleh, Alok Kapali and Mushfiqur Rahman were the culprits on this occassion.
And most importantly, none of them were wicket taking balls. Not even the wickets taken by the pacemen.
Sometimes things happen and you can't do anything to stop it. But when there are certain things that you can do to prevent things from happening, it is really discouraging to see of no effort being made to prevent disasters. But when such things happen again and again then that turns out to be a crime.
Nafis Iqbal is a debutante, and he showed that is a better opener than Hannan Sarkar, but because he cannot resist the temptation, so he goes out frequently. I guess this is what happens to him when he even plays for the Under-19 team.
We have all observed Habibul Bashar play these glorious shots on the off side and off short balls. He is probably the best puller in Bangladesh cricket. But there is this weakness that he has and that is he cannot play anything that is coming into him. He has not worked out to overcome this weakness at all. He was watching Hannan Sarkar getting all those leg byes off Andrew Flintoff, and he relished to get to Flintoff's end to make some quick runs. But when he was struggling to get those leg side balls away off Flintoff unlike Hannan Sarkar, he eventually played a very bad shot like he usually does and got out to a pull shot off a short pitched ball.
Rajin Saleh has proved himself to be such a hard working cricketer, and yet, he cannot even play a sweep shot properly. Over the test series, so many players have tried to sweep Giles and were successful, but Rajin Saleh on this occassion failed to be successful and gave an easy catch.
All the Bangladesh batsman have struggled against short pitched bowling and the strategy during the second test match was to be aggressive against those balls and try to play shots. Hannan Sarkar did just that before he was just starting to play beautifully and was looking out of sorts just after he faced a couple of short pitched balls.
Khaled Mahmud has been saying so many times of his desire to bat at number six, that he cannot score too many runs if he bats lower down the order. But when he was promoted and given the opportunity to bat at number six, he gave a simple catch to wicket keeper Chris Read off a little high ball that he did not need to play in trying to get a single off the third man.
Alok Kapali had been witnessing the procession of the batsman for going to the dressing room, and he followed when he played a straight ball of Giles on the backfoot. He tried to play it on the on side and the ball hit his pads. That was as easy as that. And he is supposed to be our best batsman in ODIs.
Mushfiqur Rahman had played so well in Dhaka, but he is finding the Chittagong ground to be his 'unlucky' ground. In fact, the whole Bangladesh team is finding the Chittagong stadium to be an unlucky one. Ofcourse, luck had nothing to do with it when the whole team plays poorly. Mushfiqur played Giles straight into his hands and he could not believe his luck when he saw that Giles took the ball in his hands so brillaintly. It is correct that Mushfiqur has not seen too many of International cricket, and he is finding life very tough at the International stage. After all, he was run out in a test match - courtesy of some very good fielding. Since he is not a good fielder himself, but he did see and be the victim of some terrific fielding two in a row.
The second debutante of the match Monjurul Islam Rana and Khaled Mashud is batting at the crease right now and managed to get past the total to 100 runs. What a relief!
Just now as the last paragraph was in the process of being written, Khaled Mashud is gone for only 13! I wonder what Dave Whatmore will say to them now!
It looks like the stage is all set for the two debutants Monjural Rana and Jamaluddin Babu to show their abilities with the bat.
Monjurul Islam Rana is out after surviving for a long time and scoring 18 runs in the way of a run-out. Now all these local players who are not much experienced at the international stage are witnessing what the standard of a professional fielding side is.