Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque :
Tigers managed to draw the first test at Fatullah, thanks to the shower of rains as the shower of blessings. In fact rains saved the tigers from Harbajan-Aswin spin web. Rains forced most sessions to be completely washed out. India elected to bat first declared on 462 . Both Bijoy and Dhawan scored tons. According to news reports:
. In reply to India’s first innings score of 462 for six, Bangladesh, resuming at 111 for three after the opening session was washed out, faced the ignominy of being shot out for 256 in 65.5 overs – 7 runs short of the follow-on. While Ashwin, with 5/87 from 25 overs, bamboozled the Bangladeshi batsmen with vicious turn and bounce, Harbhajan (3/64 in 17.5 overs) also justified his inclusion in the side bowling well in patches to become the ninth highest Test wicket-taker in the history of the game, surpassing Pakistan legend Wasim Akram. In fact, Kohli probably wanted to drive home a point by asking Bangladesh to follow-on in what was an inconsequential final hour of play on the fifth day where only two sessions were possible due to overnight rain.
When play was finally called off, Bangladesh were 23 for no loss in the 15 overs that were bowled in their second innings. For Bangladesh, Imrul Kayes (72) has been the top-scorer but it was young debutant Litton Kumar Das, who played a lovely cameo hitting a quickfire 44 off 45 balls with eight fours and a six before being gobbled by Rohit Sharma at backward short leg off Ashwin. Sarkar’s attacking prowess Another youngster Soumya Sarkar (37) also showed his attacking prowess but could not convert his start. The two sessions on the day were dominated by Ashwin as he first got Shakib al Hasan (9) when the left-hander tried to cut a delivery which bounced a shade extra and Wriddhiman Saha took a smart catch behind the stumps. 5 wickets for Ashwin (right)
Left-handed Soumya came in and counter-attacked the Indian spin duo as runs came at a fair clip. Soumya for good measure pulled Ashwin for a boundary and followed it with a lofted drive over mid-on. Left-hander Imrul Kayes was also hitting the occasional boundary as the scoreboard kept ticking during their 51-run stand for the fifth wicket. 2nd victim for ‘Turnabator’ Harbhajan bowled the occasional good delivery but was guilty of bowling a boundary ball in each over early on in his spell when he was trying to settle down.
However the ‘Turbanator’ got his second victim when he removed an in-form Kayes (72), who misjudged the length while charging out. The veteran offie had shortened the length and delivery also had turn and bounce which beat the left-handed opener as Wriddhiman got his third victim of the innings with a neat stumping. Kayes became Harbhajan’s 415th Test match wicket as he climbed to ninth place in the all-time highest wicket-takers’ list in the longer version leaving behind Akram’s 414 scalps from 102 games. In the very next over, Soumya, who had reached a quickfire 37, paid for his indiscretion as he played a lazy shot far away from his body to give Varun Aaron his first victim of the match. But India were in for some surprise as Litton started taking apart the bowling. It rained on all 5 days Litton brings up hosts’ 1st six He first swept Harbhajan for a boundary and then pulled Varun Aaron over wide mid-on for a second boundary. When Ashwin came back into the attack, Litton lofted him for Bangladesh’s first six and then slog swept him for boundary. Umesh Yadav paid for being erratic as he was first cut and then flicked for a boundary as he crossed 30 in no time. Shuvagata Hom (9), who was defending dourly at the other end, however, became Ashwin’s fourth scalp as the turn and bounce got the better of him when he lobbed one to Rohit Sharma at backward short-leg with score at 219 for seven when tea was called.
Despite the fact that Tigers drew the test with India we are critical about batting performance. Thing is that our batsmen especially frontline failed to click throwing wickets with bad shots. Bowling too was not upto expectation. If opponent always score more than 400 or 500 discredit goes to our bowling line up. I wonder whether our bowlers will be able to take all twenty wickets for a test victory. It was a great disgrace and disaster. Bowling selection was beyond our expectation. Other things too were not rightly managed. Team management seem to be wobbling all with its inefficiency and callousness Even after failing to take a single Indian wicket on Day 1 of the one-off Test, Bangladesh coach Chandika Hathurusingha defended the team management’s decision of not including pacer Rubel Hossain in the playing XI on the pretext of keeping him fit of the ODIs.. The other reason is that this wicket, we thought that if Rubel has to play and has to bowl a lot then there is a chance of a recurrence of his injury because he didn’t get a chance to play practice matches,” the coach said at the end of first day’s play here. “Not that he is not fit, he is not to fit to bowl on this kind of a wicket because you need a lot of effort to bowl on this kind of a wicket to be successful. If the wicket was helping fast bowlers, we could have gone in a different way.”
Hathurusingha insisted that it was better to preserve Rubel for the three-match ODI series rather than playing him on this kind of a pitch. “The reason to pick the spinners is again because of the condition of the wicket. The other thing is having a variety of spinners taking the Indian team’s history for last few series. A few off spinners have been successful against them.
“We cannot control the Indian strength, what we can control is what we do with our resources. Rubel, we are keeping him for the One-days. It is very crucial for us to win the ODIs, knowing that if we win at least one game, we have a chance of qualifying for the Champions Trophy. So if the condition was different, we would have played another seamer,” Hathurusingha explained.
The Sri Lankan clarified that the team was picked after looking at the wicket. “The plan was to pick the team we thought was good for the wicket and according to our strength. I think we created enough chances, but few things didn’t go our way. Had we taken those opportunities, it would have been a different story.
“We have made progress in a lot of ways. At this stage, we are playing with one fast bowler because of the condition, not that we have not progressed. Sometime we were limited in certain ways,” said Hathurusingha. Hathurusingha stressed that Bangladesh were still playing to win.
“We still want to win. We are still playing to win, that’s what I can tell you. I don’t see anything different in the body language. Only thing is the scoreboard says 230 (239) for no loss. But in cricket anything can happen. Until both sides finish at least one innings I can’t come to conclusion whether we have done the right thing or not. I didn’t see anything wrong with the body language,” said the coach. Stating it was a good toss to win, Hathurusingha said: “On a pitch like this, it is always a big advantage to win the toss and bat. And they (India) have capitalised on that and put up a good total. They batted well. Obviously, we created enough chances but we didn’t take it.”
Hathurusingha said the key would be to bowl well.
“Jubair is bowling well. I think he has created enough chances. This is actually the best bowling attack at this stage for us on this kind of a wicket. To be honest, this is probably the most flattest wicket I have seen so far close to the one we played in Khulna, which was similar. At least there was a little more help for the bowlers, but you never know this could be a different wicket at the end of day five.
“Bowl in good areas tomorrow and get wickets. I still think we can win the game provided that we bowl well tomorrow,” he concluded. However the team management must carefully select OD players. Better the combination that whitewashed Pakistan may well be considered. Team management well may think to address any shortfall. Our captain should think to take right decision in the right moment. Think to bat first after winning good toss if wicket is batting friendly. Before electing to bat see to it that outfield will not be affected by dew. Prepare a hit list to dislodge the frontline Indian batsmen. Captain in consultation with team management and the coach should study pitch conditions. They may opt for bowling first provided pitch is merciless extremely difficult to bat and that our bowlers are fully fit. Mind that India may create havoc with batting tornado. India is one of the quickest batting sides. They have a lot of hard hitting batsmen. Challenge would be really tougher facing team India in One day. But Virat Kholi admired tigers admitting that tigers would be difficult to face in limited over game. We feel at home when we meet tigers in test.
The factor that may serve as morale booster is counseling. Cricket is a mind game. So confidence building runs parallel to efficient performance. From musrafi’s accident in rickshaw it seems that the players are not in tight discipline. Team management should try to forge discipline instructing the players to cometoghter in BCCB bus to join practice session.
True team Bangladesh is coming of age. Even then we should not be complacent. As sub-continental powerhouse is coming thinking exercise ought to be different with proper strategies. Complacence and be doomed! It seems that time has come to erase that word from our cricket. India seems rethinking pretty well after it decided not to send any team with players from second string that would be suicidal. That means India is respecting Bangladesh acknowledging it’s rising to scale.
Only efficiency on team management can enable the tigers to perform well against the cricket heavyweight. It should be serious about performance in three ODs. The players should be circumspect about shot selection. Injury problem upset the tigers. This happens during practice session. Special care should be taken so that batting or fielding practice cannot cause any injury to the players practicing in conditioning camp. Team management may well to set up separate fitness camp for the players. Mashrafe Mortaza, Bangladesh’s ODI captain, was involved in a road accident in Mirpur and suffered minor injuries on Thursday. He sustained skin lacerations on both his hands and knee after a bus clipped a cycle-rickshaw on which Mashrafe was travelling, on his way to the Shere Bangla National Stadium.
Select test team judiciously. Cricketers with fewer calibers should not be in the reckoning. What mattered tigers was the inclusion of some players who were either unfit or failed miserably to perform in matches. Tigers’ superb display against Pakistan in three ODs and T-twenty stands out to be a source of inspiration. So management may think to use winning combination (against Pakistan) for one- day circus starting on 18 June 2015. Even then the problem is torrential rain and the use of DL method for decision.
Management ought to be careful about it. Also it should burn midnight oil to plan how to make best use of mandatory batting power play. Only right strategies pay dividend in the ultimate analysis. Keep it in mind that encountering any strong team in OD is a Herculean task. OD goes with time and skill. Openers may well be advised to follow do or die method using batting power play. Even then defend any ball that is on the wicket or any wicket taking delivery. Try to keep line and length avoiding delivering any no or wide ball. Batsmen of the opponent may hit back to back boundary. But sloppy fielding, bad wicket keeping overthrowing and disarrayed bowling matter much. The captain and the coach should also think about overrate that any wrong with it may reduce 50 over to 48.
The captain in the field should always monitor bowler’s run up to avoid any overstep. He should think who will bowl in the batting power play and the bowler to bowl the last ball should be selected depending on the situation. We expect smart performance in OD – smart batting, bowling and fielding. Bad performance in tests cutting a sorry figure matters little. But OD is popular drawing huge crowds. Even a rickshaw puller or vendor evinces keen interest in ODs. So work hard.
(Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque, Professor of Public Administration, Chittagong University)
