Blogs Ashraful Wants Batsmen to Stand Up
October 16th, 2008 by kapoorBangladesh 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.
