CricDigs Blogs

Stranger things have happened to West Indies cricket, so it does not seem so shocking that their players have gone on to actually boycott test matches and the WICB has been forced to filed a second string of players. And consider this, it is a second string of WI players, so you wouldn’t expect much from them, right? But then look how poorly have Bangladesh applied themselves in their first innings. Most of their players looked uninterested in the match proceedings as if they are some sort of international stars whose pride has been hurt by asking to play against a second-rate side. What would you make out of the fact that a team that loses nearly every test match it plays, is letting go of an opportunity to secure a series victory on foreign soil? Bangladeshis need to wake-up and realize that this is a golden chance to get victories in a rarely-seen undemanding international side, if you can really call this ad-hoc WI side an ‘international’ one?

In a way, it was an upset as the unheralded Irish team that was often being tagged as a collection of folks with odd jobs like plumbing and carpentering defeated the more fancied Bangladeshis and that too, rather convincingly. From the very beginning of the match, the Irish had a few advantages to their side and they were smart enough to utilize them to the maximum.

For starters, the ball was seaming and the conditions were just a tad bit moist. Their medium-fast bowler, Johnston ensured that he pitched the ball on the good-length area and let it swing. To his credit, he kept on bowling a similar line, just outside the off-stump and this had an immediate effect as the Bangladeshi team lost three of their top key players. It was Mortaza’s last over blitzing finish that helped the Bangladeshis secure a defendable score of 130 plus. However, the batsmen from Ireland had other ideas and particularly the O’Brien brothers who ensured that their team did not get bogged down by the left-arm spinners that the Bangladeshis seem to emphasize upon, whenever they are defending a score.

Australia realized one thing yesterday – when Chris Gayle gets going you can only keep watching. Gayle’s knock was as flamboyant as his hair style. He and Fletcher almost took West Indies to a morale boosting victory. Halfway through the WI innings Rick Ponting was not even thinking about the game at hand and visualizing his strategy for the next game. He was convinced that WI is going to win. And WI won with ease and Ponting took it on his stride.

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The Bangladesh outfit is a lean and mean one. They have the potential to stun any team. Trying and playing very hard are their basic traits. And they have this huge appetite to fight for cricketing glory.

India has the bitter experience of underestimating them in the 2007 ODI World Cup. Wiser by the experience Dhoni & Co. didn’t take a single Bangladeshi player lightly. They treated all with respect, but didn’t give away anything else.

Batting first India started off well. Gambhir and Rohit Sharma maintained a very high run rate for five-six overs. Then Gambhir who had actually started the banging with a boundary in the second ball of the first over slowed down. The spin bowling of Shakib and Naeem made life difficult for our batsmen. After Rohit’s departure, Dhoni also fell in to the rut of slow scoring. The first fifty came off 33 balls and second fifty came off 77 balls. He tried to shrug off the pressure with a huge six. Shortly after that Naeem uprooted his stumps.

Thanks to the cameo role played by Yuvaraj, the run rate again rose back to nine runs per over. He hit the four sixes effortlessly and sullied the neat bowling figure of Naeem.

Bangladesh was not intimidated by the defending champion’s reputation or the score. Junaid Siddiqi tried to match Yuvraj’s 41 off 18 balls and scored 41 off 22 balls. At one time it appeared that the spirited Bangladeshi boys will run away with the game. Pragyan Ojha quelled all fears. He took a wicket in the very first ball and took another wicket in the same over.

It was Ojha who spun India’s way to victory.

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I guess India is the only team in the current edition of the T20 World Cup that has played five bowlers and this is precisely what was on display last night, as the Indians won their first group match against a competitive Bangladeshi side. For starters, when the Indians batted, it seemed that the top order was slightly conscious of the fact that they were a batsman short and there was no Sehewag. This could probably be the reason why the run-rate was helped along with just singles being run between the ninth and the 15th over.

However, once Yuvraj Singh came to the crease, the Indian innings took a completely different look with the southpaw blistering the left-arm spinners over the boundary line. The presence of five specialist bowlers meant that India could play two spinners and Pragyan Ojha delivered, picking up four wickets while Bhajji, though wicketless, bowled well too. It would be interesting to see whether India can continue with five bowlers against teams that have a more toothed seam attack. I guess Jadeja is the man who could be fitted-in for Irfan or Ojha, if the team wants a longer batting line-up. Wonder how RP Singh fits in the team now, if Zaheer and Ishant continue to bowl decently.

It may sound a bit strange to some folks that a team that has lost both of its warm-up games is the one that has impressed the most so far in this lead-up to the World Cup in England. In their opening game, Bangladesh were fiercely competitive and nearly reached the 200-run mark against a very decent Aussie bowling line-up. It was just that they had conceded too many runs that ultimately led to their loss. Again, in yesterday’s match against the Sri Lankans, the Bangladeshis nearly won the match and stretched the much better-looking Lankans with just two balls to spare. It seems that they are the best option if you are looking to bet upon the biggest upset-makers of the tournament. And when you consider that just a year or so back, a lot of their players had defected to the ICL, this performance seems a lot more credible. The big problem remains their very unpredictable bowling which is downright pedestrian on some days.

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Hardcore fans of the Bangladeshi cricket team might want to disagree with this but the fact remains that Bangladesh are a highly depleted squad right now. As it is, the side wasn’t winning much against other international sides and its status was being constantly questioned by foreign teams who didn’t see much purpose in playing test cricket with them. This problem has been recently compounded with many of its national team members defecting to the much-maligned ICL. However, when it comes to playing against Zimbabwe (matched in terms of experience at least) it does make for some good cricket viewing for those who might be a bit bored by seeing the regular big names of the game pelting the ball out of the ground.

Zimbabwe find themselves at home in the current triangular one-day series when playing against Bangladesh. The pitches on offer here are slow and offer plenty of opportunities for the slowish pace bowling of its bowlers. Sri Lanka is a certainty for the finals and it is good to see that a triangular series that encourages some worthwhile competition for the lesser known teams has been organised. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to include teams like Scotland in the future.

As it turned out, Zimbabwe did manage to score a somewhat ‘surprising’ win over Bangladesh. But I am not too sure why would people rate Bangladesh notches above the Zimbabwe team. Agreed, the African team seems very pedestrian at times but then again Bangladesh hasn’t done much to credit their reputation as an international side despite having much more talent and experience on display. I certainly hope more of such tournaments are organised where the viewership and immediate financial returns aren’t as lucrative but it certainly helps the process of developing more competitive sides in the near future.

Such sort of short cricketing tournaments with one big international side and two struggling opponents with just one round robin matches to qualify for the finals helps in encouraging healthy competition for the lesser teams. Also, it gives them the opportunity of rubbing shoulders with the big names without developing a feeling of not belonging to the international cricketing arena.

Bangladesh cricket is in the doldrums that threaten to put them out of international favours. It seems that nearly all the talent associated with the national team has diverted to the ICL in the form of the newly-formed Dhaka Warriors. Now, the present set of extremely inexperienced Bangladeshi players are on the verge of embarking on their first ever Test series since the national players turned rebels on the national cricket board — the BCB. The Bangladesh Cricket Board had been rather spontaneous in announcing 10-year ban on 13 of its national players without thinking about the fact that their domestic cricket just doesn’t have any capable replacements. That one fluke-like victory against New Zealand can’t really be called a positive sign in Bangladeshi cricket.

The Bangladeshi Tigers are being implored by the Test captain Mohammad Ashraful to stand-up and save the nation from further cricketing embarrassments. Bangladesh’s test record is abysmal having scored just one win against a lowly-ranked Zimbabwe. Now, the Bangladeshi team is without their lead bowlers and batsmen who couldn’t resist the attraction of the ICL and have turned down national duties in the lure of more and easy money being offered by the Indian franchise.

Ashraful’s side could take some confidence from the one-day series they played against the Kiwis and did manage not to lose it. Their main problem is the weakened batting which includes the top seven without even one of them having an average of nearly 35. The team coach, Jamie Siddons, has also admitted that batting was the team’s main worry and the domestic scene was equally bare.

One positive that did come out of the short one day series against the Kiwis was the form of the all-rounder Naeem Islam. He is now a sure bet to make his Test debut when the first test match begins. The left-arm spinning options have also been abundant in Bangladesh and now they are looking forward to Abdur Razzak to carry the tradition. Even the New Zealand coach, John Bracwell, has said that spin would be the main weapon against his batsmen in the opening test match. However, the honest opinion of most cricketing experts suggests that the air has been knocked out of the Bangladeshi lungs with the banning of so many of its national players and the team could even lose its international status.

This series has turned down tables big time for India. Indian cricket team has for long carried on with player’s reputation. At one stage there looked noway an youngster could imagine anything more than supplying drinks on the field. Its fantastic to see the way the Indian Cricketing Board has turned now. Don’t really know what happened to them, whatever be it, things have begun to happen for India. Persisting with youngsters is always a risk, the board was brave enough to take the risk, and its paid off really big time. This Indian team is blend with an energetic lot, who would do anything to make their team to win.

Dropping Ganguly and Dravid really seemed ridiculously insane at the start of the ODI series. But now one realises, what such risky decisions can turn out to be. India has managed to win a series down under after almost two decades. The simple reason is the attacking cricket by the Indian players and definitely the Australlian slump in form

The finds for India this series will clearly have to be Ishanth Sharma for his ability to threaten batsmen’s with fiery spells, Dhoni as a captain, Gautam Ghambir to steady the ship, Elegant Rohit Sharma, In form Pathan. Yuvaraj did show glimpses of form in the latter part of the series, but was noway near his best. Praveen Kumar to me was really impressive. Its gonna be a real big challenge to him to keep up his form. Its obvious that the other teams by now shud’ve worked him out, and the challenge upfront is to keep doing what he did in Australlia.

This Indian team to me looks really good now. Can challenge any team i believe. The flops of this series for India are Sehwag, Yuvaraj, SreeShanth, Harbhajan Singh(only exception was the first finals). It will be great if Harbhajan Singh shuts his mouth and deeds, and make the ball do the talking. Currently for him the ball is not talking, and he’s bowling at his worst. Its time he shuts his mouth, and do something credible with the ball

The Indian team has been training hard at Kolkotta , preparing for the tour of Bangladesh. The country’s media has been tracking their progress literally on a hourly basis each day. I have another suggestion for BCCI though. Instead of conducting this particular camp , they could as well have done with another alternative where selection would have been easy, which would have made the players fit , saved precious money and cooled down the anger of the seething millions. Yes, they should have asked the players to pedal down to Dhaka from Kolkotta. It could all been organized just like a race with the first 15 players completing the cycle race forming the team. One thing though, excepting Rahul Dravid, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik, I don’t know how many would have actually completed the race!