Cricket is the only thing that can bring the whole population together in Bangladesh. No one gets more cheers from the crowd than a Bangladeshi bowler bowling the first ball. This cricket crazy nation was gifted with 10 consecutive home wins by the national team. Their most recent prey was the national team of India which is considered to be one of the Big 3. Bangladesh, a team that had to wait 5 years to win its first ODI, has managed to defeat one of the Big 3 in a bilateral series.
Once considered as Minnows, Bangladesh is now the new buzz word in the cricketing world. From ICC World Cup 2015, their performance has been consistent. Their most prominent recent series win was against Pakistan, whom they have not managed to beat since 1999. Bangladesh with the record of the most losses in ODIs has now the 4th highest consecutive ODI wins at home.
Like all good things, this transformation was very hard to achieve. After playing first ODI in 1986, Bangladesh National Cricket team had to take the hard way to get here. They suffered a lot of losses, had to hear lot of criticism through-out the way. At one point, people were talking about taking away its test-status. We had to work real hard. People thought we were done for good. But we did not. We fought back. We managed to defeat two-time world champion Australia in 2005. That was also the year we managed to pick up our first test win. After that we managed to defeat every cricket playing nation in the world, one by one. We even managed to white-wash a few of the nations in which there are Pakistan, New Zealand and West Indies.
Bangladesh National Cricket team had some great players. There was a time when the whole team had to rely on those 2/3 players. If they failed then the whole team would fail. Â
Now it is a whole new story. Now every player is a performer. We have Tamim Iqbal, who has his name in the Hall of Fame at Lord's along with the Greats. We have Shakib Al Hasan, who was the number 1 all-rounder in all three formats of the game. We have Mushfiqur Rahim, the first Bangladeshi batsman to score 200 runs in a test innings. The latest edition is Mustafizur Rahman, who has the world record of most wickets in the first two matches played by a player.
These examples are showing the staggering improvement made by the cricket team. Alas! We have no ICC trophy to show for it. We came tantalisingly close in the Asia Cup, 2012.
Now, let us come back to present. After a fantastic performance in the ICC World Cup 2015, our performance graph is going upwards. Most recent success is against India. We defeated the Indian Cricket Team who took us as an ordinary team. They even wanted to send their "A" team. Even when their defeat is inevitable, they question our worth. This time, we are waiting for the glory.
The writer is a student of twelve class at St. Joseph Higher Secondary School, Dhaka, email:salman_nasif@yahoo.com
Rise of the tigers
Salman Khan Nasif | Published: June 25, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
Share if you like