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Sporty Forty

Quazi Zulquarnain Islam

The young boy diving around in this veritable dustbowl can hardly be eight years old. He is small for his age, and most definitely either a rubbish collector or a beggar plying the roads of Dhaka every day. But in the early hours of this winter morning, kicking around a deflated football in the grassless plains of the Banani playground, he is someone else entirely.

“Bangladesh,” he shouts as he kicks the ragged football a few yards. His partner in crime could be a twin. He has the same sunken eyes and stick arms that say poverty better than any words ever could.

But this morning there is a sparkle in his eyes.

They shuffle around vigorously, kicking up enough dust to form a cloud around them but none of it matters. Not too later on, there will be food and a home to think of, or more explicitly, how to get both for the day.

But right here and now, the only thing that matters is the football.

When they settle enough for me to speak to them, I ask who their favourite player is.

They are stumped. I venture further, “Do you watch cricket?” I ask.

“Shakib Al Hasan,” says the first immediately, with no hesitation. He doesn't even let me finish my question. He rings off other names. These are on the edge of his lips. Evidently, the cricketers are popular. There is now a feisty smile on his lips. This is a topic he knows and he is comfortable with. And as the smile suggests, this gives him joy.

This early morning shenanigan is the perfect metaphor for a more macro-outlook on things. Because in a country of 160 million people, most of whom suffer from rampant poverty and increasing inequality, the one tie that binds us all together is sport.

And politics of course, but sport is still unique in that it is still the one aspect that unifies us all. Our politics may differ, but our outlook on sport is the same: it gives us something to smile about; it helps us showcase ourselves to the world. It is one of our few positive conduits to the rest of the world.

The portly Dav Whatmore had a mantra that was unfortunate only in its timing. “We must develop a winning habit,” he stressed at press conferences and interviews, even as the Bangladesh cricket team capitulated to loss after loss in the international cricketing arena.

As a result, his words became the fodder for many a joke.

What winning habit, we said? Here we are, doing our best to not get humiliated and our coach is talking a big game about developing a winning habit!

Indeed, at that time, it was amazing that Whatmore could think of winning, with Bangladesh cricket at a nascent stage and doing their best just to keep up its respectability in front of the rest of the world.

But what most failed to take into account at that time was the far-sightedness of Whatmore.

After all, the Australian is a world champion coach. And you don't become a world champion unless you possess significant quality.

So now, some four years after Whatmore last oversaw a Bangladesh training session, the powers that be of Bangladesh cricket are calling for the same and eating humble pie while doing so.

On the back of two consecutive series victories over New Zealand and Zimbabwe, and with the World Cup at home about a month away, cricket in Bangladesh stands at the cusp of something, for want of a better term, game-breaking.

It seems that, while it might have taken us years to learn to walk, now that we can, we only want to run.

With players of the ilk of Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal bringing with them a 'devil-may-care' attitude, the Tigers seem finally to be able to live up to their quite considerable sobriquet. Gone are the days of struggling to cope with the demands of international cricket. Bangladesh is now firmly a part of the cricketing elite. We are here to stay.

The journey to get here has not been easy. During the early years of Bangladesh, cricket had been very much a second sport to football in terms of its interest value to the public. But it steadily emerged as the sport where we could make the most definitive impact in a world stage. Hence, the last 20 years have shown a marked increase in the interest value of the sport as well as its impact. So much so that, possibly every young professional in the city can lay claim to have received some form of albeit amateurish coaching as a youngster. The result of such mass-driven interest was the Bangladesh cricket team which won the ICC Championship in 1997 and qualified for the World Cup in 1999 before going on to beat Pakistan in the most historic of encounters.

Test status came soon after, and the rest as they say, is history.

The key question then is: where do we go from here?

To which the most obvious answer is up.

At least as far as cricket is concerned, Bangladesh can rest assured that the interest value in the sport is such that there will be an assembly line of cricketers queuing up for a spot in the national team in the near future, if things go according to plan.

Of course, there is the possibility that things can go awry but there exists a solid framework, good coaches and the right mix of elements to make this game the launching pad of our sporting success.

The World Cup in February is a step in the right direction. The heartbeat of cricket has been centred on the sub-continent and India in particular for a number of years, but Bangladesh had always pointedly missed out on a tri-partite party. Pakistan's troubles, ironically, provide us with the perfect platform to exercise that opportunity. Dhaka and Chittagong will jointly play host to seven World Cup games including two quarterfinals, and, most enticingly, the opening ceremony too will be held at the iconic Bangabandhu National Stadium.

It is an opportunity that both the government and the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) have not taken full advantage of. A plethora of tourists are expected to hoard to the capital and its nearby attractions in the near future but one cannot but help feel that despite the tourism board's best efforts and the Local Organizing Committee's (LOC) brave faces, we have missed a beat.

And there it lies, the critical problem that hinders the development not just of sport but of most other things in the country: a lack of far-sighted management.

In many ways, given our natural resources to shine, this may be the only big problem on the horizon for cricket. Otherwise, as the metaphor goes, our ship has just left port; it should be smooth sailing from here on in. And after all, the winning habit has already been developed.

Which is more than can be said of football.

Very much the country's number two sport at the moment, football has been fighting a somewhat losing battle with its status over the past two decades. This is ironic since, at about the same time, interest in the game on a more international level has peaked to astronomic proportions.

2011 was a crucial year for sports in Bangladesh. And not just for cricket or football or golf, but for the many other small sports which struggle for a spot of the limelight. Be it shooting, be it kabbadi, many sports are slowly but surely petering out even as other countries move ahead.

But the World Cup in 2011 at home soil provides the perfect opportunity for sport to take top spot on the agenda. At no other time will so much public focus be given to it. It remains to be seen if the right quarters can capitalise.

Quazi Zulquarnain Islam is a sports journalist. This is a truncated version of an article which was first published in the January 2011 issue of Forum.