Bangladesh Cricket, The Low Points
On a warm July day, in Bristol England, Bangladesh finally broke their jinx over England
. Although, we have defeated all the major cricket playing nations in senior level cricket, we have always stumbled against England. Finally, with this victory for Mashrafee's men, the jinx was over. Here, in Dhaka we were ecstatic with joy. Yet, within a week, our team have been brought back to earth. With a defeat at the hands of Ireland, followed by an even more embarrassing defeat against Holland, our team has clearly shown the inconsistent nature of itself. With the WC just six months away such inconsistency casts serious doubts about our chances. As the cricket fans of the country feel disappointed after the return of the team, I think it is a good time to look at some of our worst performances in the international cricket arena. Obviously these two defeats can be included out there, but since the pains are still rife in our memory, I would rather look at the more distant past. I would start in Jan, 1978, at the small town of Mymensingh, north of Dhaka.
Central Zone Vs SL (Jan 1978, Mymensingh) (The winter of 42): In the annals of Indian cricket history, The Summer of 42' refers to the disastrous tour of England by Ajit Wadeakr's men in 1974. During the tour, not only did the tourists lose all the three test matches, they were bowled out for 42, in the 2nd innings at Lords. This is still, India's lowest test score. Similarly, in the Bangladesh cricket history, the series against SL, at home in January 1978, can be called The winter of 42'. After successfully hosting the short tour of the MCC team during the winter of 1976-77, BCCB invited a much stronger SL side to tour Bangladesh in Jan, 1978. And the Lankans accepted the invitation and sent their full strength national team. Perhaps, there was a lack of idea among both the parties regarding the strength (or the weakness) of the opposition. While Bangladesh was just entering the cricketing fraternity, the Lankans were on the verge of attaining full test status. As things happened, the tour was full of badly one sided fixtures. It took just one match, in fact, just one session to highlight the enormous difference in power between the teams. The tour started with the 2 day match between the Central Zone XI and the tourists at Mymensingh. The Central Zone captain Raqibul won the toss and decided to bat first. On the matting wicket, the local batsmen could not handle the varied Lankan attack. Raqibul himself perished early and after that it became a procession, Only Mainu (14) could reach double figures, as medium pacer Opatha (5/18) and off spinner Illperuma (4/11) destroyed our batting. The central zone innings ended at 42, just after lunch. In reply the Lankan opening pair of Warnapura and Fernando batted with utmost ease to score 85 and 79 respectively as the tourists declared at 190/2. The central zone batting did slightly better in the 2nd innings, with Raqibul top scoring with 25 and Mainu making 16. But the innings folded at 72 to concede defeat by an innings and 72 runs.
Bangladesh Vs Bermuda (2nd ICC Trophy, England) 30th June, 1982: The Bangladesh team under theable leadership of Shafiq-ul-Haq Hira made an excellent start to the tournament. A convincing 76 run victory over the West Africans was followed by a close 26 run victory over the East and Central Africa. Unfortunately, Bangladesh had to share points with Fiji (due to rain) in a match they were expected to win easily. After beating Malaysia by just 1 run in a nail biting finish, our boyz took on Bermuda, the strongest team in the group. The venue of the match, the Kings Heath Cricket Ground, Birmingham is certainly not a lucky place for our boyz. They lost a vital match against the Danes there, 3 years earlier. And here they were humiliated against Bermuda, losing the game by 7 wickets, after being bowled out for a mere 67. Admittedly, the opposition was far superior to us, but the collapse of our batting was inexplicable. Interestingly, the first Bangladeshi wicket fell at the score of 30, opener Raqibul was dismissed for 8. But, then Lipu and Rumy both fell without scoring and it became a procession. Left arm medium medium-pacer Trot made the initial breakthrough and he finished with 3/12. His new ball partner, King took 3/23 and Lionel Thomas destroyed the lower order, taking 4/13. Strangely, for Bangladesh, it was the teen aged opener Nazim Shirazi, who provided the only resistance, batting bravely to top score with 26. As wickets tumbled around him, he showed maturity beyond his age to carry the fight to the opponents, but there was absolutely no support for him. No one else even reached double figures; the 2nd highest contribution to the total came from Mr. Extra (11). The Bermuda batsmen didn't waste time and they took only 15.5 overs to reach the target.
Bangladesh Vs Malaysia: 3rd ICC Trophy (England) (18 th June, 1986): After finishing 4th in the 2nd ICC trophy, Bangladesh went into the next version in 1986, full of hopes of improving upon their previous efforts. As things happened, Bangladesh finished 6th in their group of 7 teams winning just 2 of their games (against Kenya and Argentina). We lost against Zimbabwe, East and Central Africa, Malaysia and Denmark. Among these defeats the loss against Malaysia hurt us most, as we always believed that we were far superior to our neighbors in cricket. While we took our cricket very seriously, the game was little more than a pastime for the Malay people. Their team consisted mostly of part-timers, a number of them from Indian origin. Batting first Malaysia kept losing wickets regularly to reach at one stage 135/6. The veteran Jahangir Shah Badshah, always at his best in English conditions bowled superbly to take 4/39. But, there was little support for him, and Malaysia recovered to reach 239 all out. A.Stevens top scored with 68, but it was Imran Hamid with an unbeaten 64, who provided the late flourish. Bangladesh, as usual, was very generous in giving the extras, 41 runs came from the sundries in the Malay innings. In reply, Bangladesh ran into early trouble. During the tournament, the tour management continuously experimented in their bid to find an opening partner for Raqibul. Here, they tried Atahar Ali Khan, who had little previous experience in that position. The experiment failed, Atahar went for 11, Raqibul for 14; and to make matter worse Masum, the makeshift No. 3 ran himself out for a duck. Inform Nannu fell for 10, to leave us tottering at 4/50. Hamid had taken the wickets of Raqibul and Nannu, and his superb all round show won him the man of the match award. Our middle order offered some resistance. Nehal with 40, skipper Lipu with 41, and Rafiq with 51 rekindled our hopes. All of them were capable of playing a match winning knock on their day. It would have taken only one of them to stay long enough for us to reach our target. But, here, all perished at critical stages. Little known Desmond John became the bowling hero for the Malaysians with 5/40 as we were bowled out for 182.
Bangladesh Vs Holland (5th ICC trophy, Kenya) (23rd February, 1994): After the disappointment of 1986, our cricket regained some of the lost images with a strong display in the 1990 ICC trophy in the Netherlands, finishing 3rd. Zimbabwe, after winning their 3rd straight tournament were granted full test status and their ICC trophy days were over. Also, with ICC increasing the quota for associate members in the WC from 1 to 3 we were extremely hopeful about qualifying for the next WC. Extensive preparation was taken for the tournament under our new coach Mahinder Amarnath, the hero of India's historical triumph in 1983. But, amidst the hectic planning a few points were missed. Almost our entire preparation was based on the subcontinent. The conditions in Kenya were entirely different. Specially, our bowlers struggled after 30 overs or so due to the high altitude. Secondly, there were too many matches played during our preparation, and the players became tired. Rather than reaching their peak during the ICC trophy, some of them were jaded and wished the tournament to finish as soon as possible. Saiful, one of our key bowlers, got injured before the tournament started and returned home without playing a single game. Nawsher Prince, our main fast bowler broke down before the 2nd round. Finally, too much experimentation was done as well. As a result, even the senior players were not sure about their roles in the team. Bangladesh did start the tournament pretty well with victories against Argentina, East and Central Africa and USA. But, in those matches our top order looked very shaky. Coming from the slow low bouncy pitches of the subcontinent, they struggled to control the extra bounce of the new ball. Specially, against USA, chasing a modest target of 146, our top order collapsed completely against the new ball attack of Howard and Barrett to reach 5/36. Only a determined hand of 64* by burly Akram Khan and some help from the tail saw us home for a 3 wicket victory. Bangladesh however finished the 1st round with a 6 wicket defeat at the hands of the eventual champions UAE. Despite this defeat, we reached the 2nd round. But, we were in the strong group E along with Netherlands, hosts Kenya, and HK. While HK was a pushover, the Dutch were the beaten finalists of 1986 and 1990, and Kenya was almost invincible at home. Thus, our first 2nd round match, against the Dutch, was a must win affair for us. Bangladesh captain Faruk Ahmed won the toss and put the opposition into bat. Despite the absence of key fast bowler Prince our boys put on a superb show on the field. Opener Oosterom top scored with 64, but the Dutch collapsed from a comfortable 88/1 to a disappointing 205 all out. A number of their middle order batsman got starts, but could not convert these into any scores. 4 run outs in the middle didn't help their cause. All rounder MInhajul Abedin Nannu excelled with the ball taking 3/33. On this condition, 206 would have been a cakewalk; yet we were effectively out of it after losing half of our batting for just 51 runs. Even Akram, our last hope, fell this time for just 4. After that, it was just a case of damage limitation. WK cum opening bat Jahangir, fresh from his hundred against the Emirates, this time made 48. All rounders Moni (29*) and Babul (28), with some late flourish took the score to 158. A defeat against Kenya in the next match ended our hopes for a WC place.
Bangladesh Vs SL (ICC World Cup, 2003) (South Africa) (14th February, 2003): Normally a defeat against the Lankans should not be considered as a disaster. Although, Bangladesh cricket has made great strides since the first meeting between the sides, way back in 1978, the Lankans still enjoy some considerable edge in every department of the game. But, it was the manner of this defeat, that made me include this performance as one of our worst ever in the international arena. The moral of the team was pretty low even before the match. Just days earlier, they were humiliated by the amateurs from Canada. Now, against the more professional Lankans our boys made the worst possible start. Put into bat, our first 4 wickets fell for just 4 runs in the first 5 deliveries of the match. The Lankan left armer Vaas took all these 4 wickets including a hatrick. His victims were Hannan, Ashraful, Ehasanul and Sanwar. This was sensational, at least from the Lankans' perspective. The game was effectively over in the very first over. Alok Kapali (32) and Mashrafee (28) helped Bangladesh cross the 100 mark; they were eventually bundled out for 124.Vaas added two more scalps (Al Shahriar and Mashrafee) to finish with the remarkable figures of 6/25. SL reached their target with almost 30 overs to spare without losing any wicket. Atapattu (69*) and skipeer Jayasurya (55*) showed our boyz how to bat in such conditions.
Bangladesh Cricket, The Low Points
By: Rafiqul Ameer
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