U19 World Cup, New Zealand, Jan-Feb 2002

February 6, 2002

The honeymoon was over when the youths were crushed by South Africa in the opener. A draw with Canada left a bitter taste but a surprise win over India revived some hope of decency in our performance.

Two wins against outsiders PNG and Kenya was overlooked as they should have been although Kenya is supposedly our closest rivals in cricket, their youth program needs to speed up a little bit. The next big match-up was against Zimbabwe and it was one one chance to hit back on the nay-sayers. Another unpardonable performance saw Bangladesh sent back to the ranks of their former ICC compatriots.

Some feared the worst was yet to come. Bangladesh faced a rapidly improving Nepal in the second semi-final where a win would have ensured a match-up against Zimbabwe in the finals.

There is not much you can say about a team whose only Test player scores a duck chasing a somewhat respectable total of 180. That 180 was also a gift from the bowlers. 44 runs were scored in the last 5 overs by the Nepalese who looked better prepared then their overhyped opponents.

In the end, that 180 was more then enough for Nepal to score a 23 runs win and reach the finals of the under 19 world cup. Bangladesh was left bewildered and humiliated as they brought down the standard of cricket to a new low.

February 4, 2002

The Under 19 team is looking awfully out of shape in the World cup matches in New Zealand.

They have lost to South Africa in the group opener and went on to surprise everyone (and themselves) involved by drawing a match with Canada. For the third time in a row, Bangladesh failed to move on to the super league of the tournament despite defeating favorites India in a very low-scoring match.

With only the Plate title to fight for, the team started out well in the plate league group matches by defeating hopeless opponents Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Kenya. Both were big wins but in a tournament where teams like Nepal and Namibia have shown much improvement, we still have to remain content with such pointless wins.

Our boys won both those matches by 9 wickets but wiped those out with a crushing 9 wicket defeat in the hands of Zimbabwe. The worst part is, the youth team boosts a test player and others with international exposure. None of them came good except for some good individual performance against the weaker sides. This is the same team that was hoping to make it to the semi-finals before leaving Dhaka.