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Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 7:25 am
by Kriterion_BD
The Tigers seem to have a new lease of success currently. Are they assuming their role as the jungle's apex predator???

Over the next 4 years, we should have a fairly busy schedule. 33 Tests, and 41 ODIs scheduled (don't care about T20s) + 2 Asia Cups + 1 tri series.

This year is a pretty tough one. 4 home series as follows:

vs PAK (2 Tests, 3 ODIs)
vs IND (1 Test, 3 ODIs)
vs SA (2 Tests, 3 ODIs)
vs AUS (2 Tests)

The rainy season coincides with the PAK, IND, and SA tours. Thus, I think we have the ability to draw all 5 scheduled Tests, and maybe win a 3-4 of the ODIs, more if India sends their "A" team like last year.

What is most promising about this Bangladesh side is that they are starting to form a well rounded side. The very end of this 4 year period will see us venture out to New Zealand for a 3-Test series, and by that time we could have a very strong lineup. Most of our players are either entering the prime of their career or are still in their pre-prime early years.

Mushfiq-Shakib-Tamim form the core, and they are vastly experienced, yet still young. Shakib at 28 is the oldest, while Mushfiq and Tamim are both only 26. Mushfiq in particular has the discipline and fitness to play on until he's 40. Mahmudullah may become a member of this club, as he was the MVP during the World Cup...much to everyone's surprise! He too is still south of 30 years old.

The youth brigade is staffed by Mominul-Nasir-Sabbir-Soumya-Taskin-Taijul-Jubair. None is older than 23 but all have already started making their mark at the highest level. Abul Hasan is outside this group, but if he can average even a third of what his current Test average is, and provide something with the ball, he too could be an asset. Shohag Gazi too could offer much with both bat and ball.

Yet uncapped but promising players include left arm seamer Mustafizur Rahman, batsmen Mosaddek Hossain, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Shadman Islam, and leg spinner Saleh Ahmed. Most of these players are Under-19ers and the current U-19 team is leading the defending world champions, South Africa, 4-1 in a 7 match ODI series.

Most Bangladesh fans are excited after a generally impressive showing at the 2015 World Cup.

Whether they get there or not, but I believe we have the capability to be the 5th or 6th ranked ODI side in the world by 2019, and be 7th or 8th ranked Test team.

Re: Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 11:48 am
by grant
Kriterion_BD wrote:Mushfiq-Shakib-Tamim form the core, and they are vastly experienced, yet still young. Shakib at 28 is the oldest, while Mushfiq and Tamim are both only 26.
What the..... Tamim is 26?? I always thought he was 30+....
Kriterion_BD wrote:Yet uncapped but promising players include left arm seamer Mustafizur Rahman, batsmen Mosaddek Hossain, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Shadman Islam, and leg spinner Saleh Ahmed. Most of these players are Under-19ers and the current U-19 team is leading the defending world champions, South Africa, 4-1 in a 7 match ODI series.
BD and AFG U19 teams are actually pretty strong. They seem to do much better than the U19 sides of many so-called "top 8" nations.....
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that their U19 players also play in the domestic competition, unlike Zim......

Re: Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 7:56 pm
by Kriterion_BD
2-0 up on Pakistan, and series clinched. BanglaWash part III would be very handy with the Champions Trophy in mind.

Pak absolutely annihilated today with 240 chased inside 39 overs!

Re: Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 3:45 am
by jaybro
It's very enjoyable watching BD knock off Pakistan with such ease, before this series they had only won the solitary match against big brother Pakistan and that was 16 years ago at the 99 WC .....

Have BD finally turned the very long corner of being a minnow to being a mid ranked side ????

A test victory against Pakistan will go a long way towards confirming this ......

Re: Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 4:07 am
by Kriterion_BD
I agree Jaybro, until we win at least 2-3 tests (or absolutely annhilate by 200 runs/7+ wickets if a single win) we can't make a legit claim at not being a minnow.

It's obvious we're not ODI minnows any more with 4 series wins in the last 5 years, 2 of them 5 match series. Also 3 consecutive top 8 level performances in the last 3 world cups: 2007 (super 8), 2011 (missed QF on net run rate), 2015 (quarterfinals).

The current side is good enough to win Tests at home especially against sides like WI, NZ and possibly even SL and PAK. But we will need pitches that actually favor spin. And we will Taskin to take the cherry and not guys like Rubel.

If it wasn't monsoon season I'd expect a win here vs Pak. Maybe in October when the Aussies come if we have rank turners...we have a shot.

Re: Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 6:09 am
by jaybro
Australia are there for taking in BD, they just can't play spin friendly conditions well at all. Their batsman struggle to adapt, their seamers are in effective, Nathan Lyon doesn't understand how to bowl on the subcontinent and MJ Clarke who is a great captain doesn't seem to know how to set fields or plans on these decks either ......

I'll still back the Aussies to win but BD should see that series as a great opportunity for a famous test win, remember they should have won the First test in BD in 06 only for a 2nd innings collapse and then a dropped catch off Ponting ......

Re: Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 11:35 am
by Kriterion_BD
You remember that 06 test? Impressive. I agree, 2-0 to aus is the the only rational prediction. But there's an opportunity if we get spinning wickets.

Re: Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 12:48 pm
by jaybro
Kriterion_BD wrote:You remember that 06 test? Impressive. I agree, 2-0 to aus is the the only rational prediction. But there's an opportunity if we get spinning wickets.

I was actually cheering on BD believe it or not, despite what opinion you may have formed after my tirades against BD I actually support them when ever they're not playing Zim even against Australia probably due to them always being such rank outsiders against Aus. Ashraful was one of my favourite players those two ODI innings in England in 05 still live clearly in my mind ......

Re: Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 3:02 pm
by Kriterion_BD
Haha, I think you were overly underestimative of BD in the past year...then again our 2014 form was so bad one could be forgiven for such a mistake. Even BD fans (not me tho) felt similarly. The talent was always there. Even back in 2005 we had Ashraful, Aftab, Shahadat who are just as talented as the current bunch. They were just dumb (Aftab), lazy (Shahadat), or incapable of withstanding mental pressure associated with pro sports (Ash). I think its extremely fool hardy to assume that 160 million population won't eventually find the jackpot without subscribing to some form of racist theory of incompetence.

That being said there will still be massive collapses. But overall, the development has always been positive ever since Dav Whatmore took the reigns in June 2003. Bangladesh were worse than Canada, forget Kenya or Streak's Zimbabwe.

And to all the idiot Indians and Pakistanis who claim Afghanistan and Ireland are better than us or developing faster, remember that BD were on par with the Netherlands and behind teams like UAE as recently as 1995. In 20 years we've closed the gap with the bottom half of the elite nations like WI, SL, PAK, ENG in one or both formats. Hows that for development?

The thing is the BCB are still massively incompetent, maybe not as bad as ZC but worse than almost all the other board. For every decent plan we have a couple of horrificly retarded status quos. For example, cricket is still centralized to Dhaka despite most of the talent residing outside the large metropolitan area. Almost all first class and list A matches are hosted in Dhaka. There is no concept of home and away.

The progress we're seeing stems from a few things:

1) natural progression of players whereby each passing generation has a higher baseline talent level and higher ceiling as well
2) that leads to slightly better domestic competitions
3) contribution of foreign coaches and experts, however limited by BCB foolishness. Shout outs to Whatmore, Jaimie Siddons, Ian Pont, Chandika Hathurasinga, and Heath Streak. Special mention for Richard McInnis who has done so much at the developmental level over 2 separate stints in BD. He is responsible for Mushfiq, Shakib, and Tamim.

Re: Bangladesh Watch 2015-2019

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:54 pm
by JHunter
grant wrote:
Kriterion_BD wrote:Mushfiq-Shakib-Tamim form the core, and they are vastly experienced, yet still young. Shakib at 28 is the oldest, while Mushfiq and Tamim are both only 26.
What the..... Tamim is 26?? I always thought he was 30+....
Kriterion_BD wrote:Yet uncapped but promising players include left arm seamer Mustafizur Rahman, batsmen Mosaddek Hossain, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Shadman Islam, and leg spinner Saleh Ahmed. Most of these players are Under-19ers and the current U-19 team is leading the defending world champions, South Africa, 4-1 in a 7 match ODI series.
BD and AFG U19 teams are actually pretty strong. They seem to do much better than the U19 sides of many so-called "top 8" nations.....
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that their U19 players also play in the domestic competition, unlike Zim......
To be honest I think the use of "top 8" as a phrase is something which should be heavily discouraged as it reinforces the notion that only a certain number of cricketing sides are, or ever can, be good enough. It's not a long step from using "top 8" to advocating "tiers". As far as I'm concerned "top 8" is at best an artificial and arbitrary grouping and at worst code for discrimination against sides which did not have full membership before 1990. The fact is that Zimbabwe and Bangladesh more than did enough to qualify for full membership (and I challenge anyone to prove for example that Bangladesh did not have multi-innings, multi-day domestic cricket matches before their first test in 2000 or that cricket wasn't regularly featured in the news there prior to the first test match - the talk about Bangladesh or any other full members being accorded full membership without the meeting the current criteria for full membership is straight up crap and ignorance!) and excluding them by referring to "top 8" sides is just wrong.

Using a term like top 8 also doesn't allow for the acceptance that there might well be more than 8 teams which are actually competitive in terms of performance....which is what we are seeing now I believe as Bangladesh's performances improve. The anchor frame of reference for the terminology "top 8" is often the highest ranked side or the highest ranked few (or as a variant, the oldest few sides), which means that until Australia, India, South Africa or England find themselves ranked as No. 9 or No. 10 consistently then the frame of reference will not change. On the other hand if any of those sides were to be ranked as No. 9 or No. 10 then I have little doubt that the term "top 8" would fade and we would see it replaced by "top 10".

Kriterion_BD wrote:Haha, I think you were overly underestimative of BD in the past year...then again our 2014 form was so bad one could be forgiven for such a mistake. Even BD fans (not me tho) felt similarly. The talent was always there. Even back in 2005 we had Ashraful, Aftab, Shahadat who are just as talented as the current bunch. They were just dumb (Aftab), lazy (Shahadat), or incapable of withstanding mental pressure associated with pro sports (Ash). I think its extremely fool hardy to assume that 160 million population won't eventually find the jackpot without subscribing to some form of racist theory of incompetence.
My thoughts exactly. I've never agreed with the way commentators, journalists and some fans have disparaged Bangladesh (and Zimbabwe...and to a lesser extent the West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). It was always in poor taste and seemed predicated on racism and the notion that things will never change, when anyone actually engaging their neurons could tell that any of those teams could one day rise in the rankings and do really, really well for a period of time. Bangladesh has the history (being part of India and Pakistan and having had first class matches up to the late 1960s), cricketing culture, fan base, player base, infrastructure and the competitions necessary to give themselves the kind of foundation from which they can put out potentially match winning, series winning and tournament winning teams.


That being said there will still be massive collapses. But overall, the development has always been positive ever since Dav Whatmore took the reigns in June 2003. Bangladesh were worse than Canada, forget Kenya or Streak's Zimbabwe.


The difference being though that Kenya and Canada don't have the similar kind of foundations as Bangladesh which is why since 2003 Bangladesh has now become more consistent (at least at home) and those two teams have faded badly.
And to all the idiot Indians and Pakistanis who claim Afghanistan and Ireland are better than us or developing faster,
Well they are idiots if they are claiming that. Given that Bangladesh is already at a point where Afghanistan and Ireland need to develop to such claims would be nonsensical. At best maybe one could argue that Afghanistan is developing at a faster rate than Bangladesh did at a similar point in Bangladesh's pre-full membership history. But if that were the case it would be due to the differences in the eras (Bangladesh for instance developed in the era before T20 could be used to really popularize cricket and generate revenues)
remember that BD were on par with the Netherlands and behind teams like UAE as recently as 1995
.

which once again is due to the foundations. Both the Netherlands and the UAE have quite a bit of history with cricket but in both countries cricket is very much a minority/expat sport.
In 20 years we've closed the gap with the bottom half of the elite nations like WI, SL, PAK, ENG in one or both formats. Hows that for development?
That's development that should be expected to be honest. :D
The thing is the BCB are still massively incompetent, maybe not as bad as ZC but worse than almost all the other board. For every decent plan we have a couple of horrificly retarded status quos. For example, cricket is still centralized to Dhaka despite most of the talent residing outside the large metropolitan area. Almost all first class and list A matches are hosted in Dhaka. There is no concept of home and away.
I suspect that will be the step to unlocking Bangladesh's full potential. If matches begin to spread outside of Dhaka then I would expect that within a few years of that occurring we would see Bangladesh being equivalent to Pakistan (not the team Pakistan just fielded though, the normal Pakistan) in terms of their dynamism on the field. 8-)
The progress we're seeing stems from a few things:

1) natural progression of players whereby each passing generation has a higher baseline talent level and higher ceiling as well
Yep. Foundation.
2) that leads to slightly better domestic competitions
3) contribution of foreign coaches and experts, however limited by BCB foolishness. Shout outs to Whatmore, Jaimie Siddons, Ian Pont, Chandika Hathurasinga, and Heath Streak. Special mention for Richard McInnis who has done so much at the developmental level over 2 separate stints in BD. He is responsible for Mushfiq, Shakib, and Tamim.
Agreed.