Feature

Against the grain: Why Bangladesh
should not rejoice its victories too much

Nishat Tasneem

Bangladesh cricket is enjoying a rare sweet moment now in the past month, the team has won a test series (2-0) and a one-day series (3-0) against West Indies, the team immediately above Bangladesh in both test and one-day rankings (Bangladesh was ranked 9th and West Indies was ranked 8th in both versions of the game coming into the series). In 2004, Bangladesh won a test series and a one-day series against Zimbabwe, the team immediately above Bangladesh in both test and one-day rankings back then (Bangladesh was ranked 10th and Zimbabwe was ranked 9th in both versions of the game coming into the series). Since then, Bangladesh lost four out of four tests in 2005, four out of four tests in 2006, four out of five tests in 2007 (earning a draw against India), and four out of five tests in 2008 (earning a draw against New Zealand). Although much fanfare took place after the win over Zimbabwe, the Bangladesh cricket team posted a long line of poor performance in the following four and a half years to leave its large fan base deeply dissapointed. Now that Bangladesh has whitewashed West Indies in their own soil in both versions of the game, there is a risk of repetition of another long spell of embarrassing defeats.

The impressive Zimbabwean cricket systematically faded to void as major players, such as Andy Flower, Grant Flower, Henry Olonga, Travis Friend, Andy Blignaut, Craig Wishart, Ray Price, Sean Ervine, Mark Vermeulen, Douglas Marillier, Barney Rogers, and Heath Streak had gone for early retirement or were expelled by the authorities. This left a huge emptiness in the Zimbabwean cricket team and the “new Zimbabwe” team, led by Tatenda Taibu, was a drastically weaker team. Bangladesh played a home series against the “new Zimbabwe” team in 2004/05. As they were much experienced, they won the test series against the “new Zimbabwe” team. On surface, it was just as precious a victory as any other. However, critical thinking would take us to the conclusion that even though Bangladesh won the series; the performance of the team against the weaker 'new Zimbabwe' was below the mark and disappointing. Instead of thinking about why Bangladesh failed to whitewash the “new Zimbabwe,” Bangladeshi cricket players, fans, and the authorities stayed delusional and opted to celebrate the average performance with great celebration (who could forget how the Bangladesh team circled around the MA Aziz stadium?).

After the win over the “new Zimbabwe,” Bangladesh had to wait for 4 years and 25 test matches to reach its second victory. Alas, this win has come against an even weaker team than the “new Zimbabwe” team of 2004. Major players of West Indies, such as Chris Gayle, Shivnaraine Chandarpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Fidel Edwards and others had recently refused to play unless some of their demands were met. Not to be defeated, the West Indies Cricket Board arranged players from its first class cricket to play the series against Bangladesh. Therefore, just like the “new Zimbabwe,” a “new West Indies” was born. Only five of the sixteen players (i.e., David Bernard, Darren Sammy, Floyd Reifer, Ryan Hinds, Tino Best) of this “new West Indies" team had ever played in the international level before. Eleven of the sixteen players Chadwick Walton, Dale Richards, Kemar Roach, Nikita Miller, Omar Phillips, Ryan Austin, Travis Dowlin, Andre Creary, Kraigg Brathwaite, Nelon Pasca, and Kevin McCleanmade had their debut in the series against Bangladesh. Comparing the test playing experience, the Bangladesh cricket team is almost four times more experienced than the “new West Indies” team. While players of the “new West Indies” team played 3.63 test matches on average, players of the Bangladesh team played 13.60 test matches on average.

Just as Bangladesh had won against a severely weakened “new Zimbabwe,” so too it whitewashed a distinctly weakened “new West Indies.” The “new West Indies” team is weaker than the Bangladesh team in experience, and the batting, bowling, and fielding departments. The fact that the “new West Indies” competed closely against a convincingly stronger team throughout the entire length of both test matches, suggests that Bangladesh's performance was yet again average. And, not amazingly, the joyousness of winning has started to spread across players, fans, and the authorities once again.

The win against “new West Indies” was definitely very important for Bangladesh. The level of embarrassment would have reached a new low had the outcome of the matches been any different. However, at the end, normalcy prevailed and a much stronger team won against a much weaker one. There is no reason for joyous jubilation now. In fact, some introspection is in order. Why could Bangladesh not win the test matches more comprehensively? Which areas appear weak? What can be done to improve? Such introspection would enhance the sense of integrity (i.e., an understanding and recognition of weaknesses and strengths) among Bangladesh players and would increase the probability of more frequent victories. Bangladesh cannot afford to wait for another test playing team to collapse before it wins its next test match.

Subsequent to the West Indies tour, Bangladesh cricket team had another tour in Zimbabwe and had beaten them by 4/1 in a 5 ODIs series. Zimbabwe is a non test playing country which didn't even qualify to participate in the T20 World Cup, 2009. It was definitely a weaker team than Bangladesh and winning against them was nothing but a normal outcome for the Bangladesh cricket. But like in the past, a remarkable celebration took part all over Bangladesh. The players did well but they were supposed to do that at regular interval as a proof of their consistency.

Our cricketers reminded us many times in the past that they are also human beings and susceptible to mistakes. Echoing their views, if we maintain a balance during appreciation or criticism, that would help to bring many more laurels in the future.