Tri-nation cricket championship: Third time unlucky

Cricket is known as the game of glorious uncertainties. But Bangladesh's defeat in Mirpur could hardly be blamed upon cricket's glorious uncertainties. Bangladesh had beaten Zimbabwe twice and Sri Lanka once in the league stage so convincingly that Bangladesh's cricket fans, its administrators and the cricketers themselves had thought it would be a cakewalk to win the tri-nation tournament, the first ever in its cricket history.

A look at the 3 results would show that although there is no room for complacency in the highest levels of any game, Bangladesh team could perhaps be excused for a little of confidence or overconfidence and maybe a little touch of complacency. They had beaten Zimbabwe by 8 wickets and 21.3 overs to spare in the first match and by 91 runs in the second game getting Zimbabwe all out for only 125. Their victory against Sri Lanka was even more thumping. After scoring 320 with dashing half-centuries from Tamim, Shakib and Mushfiq, they bowled Sri Lanka out for 157, beating them by 163 runs! That was a victory by a huge margin.

Then only voodoo or black magic or sheer bad cricket played by the Bangladesh cricketers could explain what happened in their final league game against Sri Lanka in the league stage. With Sri Lanka nervous that its place was still insecure and Bangladesh already majestically into the final, the latter should have been in the best mental and physical state and going by the way they had played in the first 3 games, also on their cricketing abilities, to show their supporters in the country and the cricketing public worldwide, their strides in international cricket.

And what did Bangladesh do? It was not cricket's glorious uncertainties that it underlined. The Bangladesh team highlighted a great anti-climax, in fact, an astounding one that very few teams are capable of except the Bangladesh team itself. They batted first and with their cricket fans expecting them to better the 320 in the first match, they were all out for 82! And the Sri Lankans scored the 82 necessary in 11.5 overs with sixes and fours galore to underscore that there were no demons in the pitch.

Any other cricket team in the world seeking to win their first international tournament would have dug deep into their humiliating defeat and taken lessons to prepare for the final. The Bangladesh team and their manager and others (believe it or not, without a coach!) said that the damning defeat was a wake-up call but in reality, they said so without meaning to wake up. For if they had meant what they had said, they would have known what were the flaws in the team that was obvious to those who watched the defeat against Sri Lanka.

The most obvious problem in the Bangladesh team was in their batting despite their score of 320 in the opening game. The Bangladesh batsmen are fair weather batsmen. They are capable of dominating the opponent on good pitches but all at sea when the pitches are difficult. They seldom bat with a plan and do not seem to know that a winning score differs from pitches to pitches. For example, pitches in the matches in the league stage of the tri-nation tournament were batsmen friendly and therefore, 275 above was the safe total for those matches.

The final match was played on a different pitch that the Sri Lankans understood the moment they found that the ball was not coming off the pitch fast enough for stroke play. They instantly knew that a total close to 225 would be the winning total and just allowed only Kusal Mendis to have a blast to be certain. The rest batted to a plan led by the Captain, Chandimal. In fact, towards the end of the innings, Chandimal appeared to have concluded that even 200 would be enough and played accordingly while allowing Akila Dananjaya to play an innings of 17 that allowed the team to reach 221. That was leadership of a professional cricketer who knew to adjust with the conditions.

Bangladesh played the final innings chasing Sri Lanka's 221 with one major drawback. Shakib was out of the game with a fractured finger bone while fielding. Therefore, Tamim should have known that he was going out to bat with extra responsibilities. Instead, he wanted to finish the game in a hurry and looked like getting out a few times before he actually skied a ball to mid wicket playing like a novice. Shabbir, who should not have been in the team on form, was out, in the same manner, he was out in the humiliating defeat when the innings had folded for 82. He pulled the ball to midwicket trying to hit the ball over the fence!

Mehedi Miraj came to bat at 4 down. There the team management made another major error in team selection. Mehedi is a bowling all-rounder who should not be batting before the fall of the 6th or the 7th wicket. At 4 wickets down with the score at 80 and 122 more to score in a bowler-friendly pitch, he did not raise confidence in anyone let alone in himself. Thus he plodded around for a while and was soon out. And Mahmudullah, while playing an outstanding inning, just did not know the need of protecting a weak batsman to carry the innings forward and the team over the line. He seems to have lost that ability mysteriously after the World Cup in 2015.

A great deal has been said about Mashrafe and his inspirational leadership. The media has tried to make a folk hero out of him. Yet to those sensible about cricket, he did anything but inspire the team better than any average leader. In his early years, he showed the potential of emerging as a class all-rounder. These days he does not seem good enough even to bat at number eleven. He is still a good bowler but no longer a match winner and depends on just line and length. He is clever enough to come to bowl as he can as the Captain when he is likely to get wickets and not hit for runs.

The Bangladesh team's bowling was good but not exceptional. Shakib, whose bowling arm seemed to be sliding before this tournament, now has got his old form back and with his batting in top form, he is likely to regain his number one spot in all the formats of the game. Rubel has also found the old form that had made him a dangerous bowler in the 2015 World Cup. Mustafiz bowled well but does not look the danger he was before injury had sidelined him for quite a while last year. In fact, going by the largely misinformed Bangladesh cricket scribes, he was heralded as the bowling sensation of contemporary cricket before injury pulled him back.

That brings to what should be the most pertinent point in any discussion on the present Bangladesh cricket team. The easiest way to make this team falter is to tell the players how great they are. According to sources close to these cricketers, going to the just-concluded tri-nation series, they had bragged that they did not need a coach because they were good enough to play without one. That a team playing at the highest level of cricket could think that they did not need a coach says a lot about the players that do not augur well for the team.

It is this mindset that is responsible for the irresponsible way the Bangladesh batsmen think and play; a mindset that impedes with their understanding of the pitch or adjusting their game to the cricketing conditions on the playing field as the Sri Lankans had done to win the final. And it has been irresponsible and tantamount to suicide for the BCB to have allowed such a team to play international matches without a coach that many think, and perhaps rightly so, was another major reason why Bangladesh lost the tri-series that no other cricket team would have allowed itself to slip through its hands!

The writer is a former Ambassador.

[email protected]