A carrot and stick policy for Bangladesh batsmen

At the start of the fifth day's play in the Bangladesh-India Test match in Hyderabad, Ravi Sastri and Scott Styris, the former New Zealand Test cricketer, predicted even the precise time of the Indian win. Ravi Sastri predicted the Indian win at 2:40 pm or at tea time and Scott Styris predicted that the Indian win would be at 1:17 pm, an hour or so after lunch.
In the end, Ravi Sastri was proved correct and Scott Styris missed out by an hour or so. Nevertheless, it was no credit to their ability to predict the course of a cricket match based on their cricketing experience that allowed one to hit the bull's eye and the other to miss narrowly. It was more because they had a history of Bangladesh side's strange ability to show the highest batting skills in one innings and then fold like a pack of cards in the other, in the same match!
In New Zealand in the First Test of the series not too long ago, Bangladesh underlined how big the contrast in their batting could be between two innings of the same Test. In that Test batting first, after being sent in, the Bangladesh Team scored their highest-ever Test innings of 595 runs and were six down when they declared. In the second innings, the team came down like a pack of cards at 160 allowing New Zealand to score 217 for 3 wickets to win very easily by seven wickets.
That loss broke a record that had stood for 125 years where a team with a huge first innings score, eventually lost the match. In 1994, Australia had lost to England by 10 runs after scoring 586 in the first innings. The narrowness of Australian victory and the fact that this dubious record had stood for 125 years should shame the Bangladesh team even more. Such strange contrast in Bangladesh's batting between two innings also occurred in the First Test against England last year that they eventually lost marginally by 22 runs when in the first innings, they lost 8 wickets for 30 runs, from 190/2 to 220 all out.
There are many more such sudden collapses in one innings where in the other they have batted like a brilliant Test team. And such collapses come suddenly and not because of the sudden spells of extraordinary bowling of the opponents or for the deterioration in the pitch between the two innings. The two commentators must have been aware of such statistics of Bangladesh Test cricket to make their predictions.
The reason for such embarrassing collapses is so obvious that it is unbelievable that those in charge of Bangladesh cricket are not seeing it or seeing it all right but turning a blind eye to it. The reason is in the temperament of the Bangladesh's batsmen. For instance, in the first innings, Shakib al-Hasan was playing an exquisite innings. But, while on 82 and on top of the bowling, he charged down the wicket to hit a six of India's top spinner Ashwin and holed out. There was no earthly reason to play that shot and had he restrained himself, he with the batsmen who came later, Mushfiq with his century and the young prospect Mehedi, could have saved the follow-on to ensure a honourable draw for Bangladesh.
In an interview in India, Shakib said that playing the way he does was his style and he was not going to change. It is no doubt that Shakib is a world-class all-rounder. But it is equally true that cricket is a team game and not an individual one and in his career, Shakib's batting has been the cause of the Team's defeat or its inability to save the game while the same way of batting has given him great personal glory where defeat was not staring at the team or saving it was not an issue. His manner of getting out in the second innings was directly responsible for the defeat of Bangladesh's team in the First Test in New Zealand. His way of getting out the same way in the first innings was responsible to some extent for Bangladesh team's failure to save the Hyderabad Test.
Scott Styris underlined how to deal with Shakib's lack of responsibility while batting. He said that Bill Hayden,who was one of the most outstanding overseas batsmen to play in India, consciously stopped playing the risky shots because of the nature of Indian pitches. And Virat Kohli, now the top batsman in world cricket, rarely plays shots in the air for his responsibility to the team. Scott Styris stated unequivocally that Shakib's nonchalant opinion about his batting and his insistence that he would not change is something that the Bangladesh team management must not accept.
Shakib said he was not ready to change. In effect, all Bangladeshi leading batsmen do the same though not as a self-acclaimed style as Shakib and perhaps not as often. Captain Mushfiqur, who played an absolutely brilliant innings of 127 in the first innings in Hyderabad that came following his 159 in New Zealand, was out to a totally atrocious shot in the second innings. He played this shot when he needed to put his head down and lead the team towards a draw that was quite possible because he and Mahmudullah were building a good partnership.
The results in New Zealand and India have underlined that Bangladesh in Test cricket has finally reached true Test standard where two things would be required to sustain the improvement and make the Bangladesh Team competitive. The first is not in Bangladesh's hands but in the ICC's that is yet to recognize Bangladesh's unquestioned improvement in Test in recent times and allow it to play more Tests.
The second important thing is something that is well in the hands of the Bangladesh Cricket Board. It must send the message loud and clear to Shakib that he is not playing tennis, a game that is all about individual glory but cricket that is a team game. He must bat responsibly and put his team's needs ahead of his so-called style. If he does not, the BCB should introduce a carrot and stick policy for him and his teammates who often show the same kind of irresponsibility.
Under this policy, any batsman who gets out playing an irresponsible shot should be warned. If he repeats the offence deliberately, he should be dropped from the following Test and if his deliberately played risky shot results in the Team's defeat, the Board must consider more ways to reprimand him. With the defeat in Hyderabad, Bangladesh has lost 75 out of the 98 Tests it has played so far. Therefore, the Board should not have any worries with another defeat but if it could make the batsmen see the common sense of trying to play responsibly, the policy could be what is necessary to consolidate Bangladesh's great strides in Test cricket.
The two commentators were undoubtedly pretentious. Despite the huge number of defeats overall, Bangladesh Team played one great/good innings in the last two Tests prior to the one in Hyderabad. In playing these innings, the batsmen were comparable to the best in the game at present. Therefore, their prediction with such precision about the timing of the Bangladesh defeat would have been insulting even to Afghanistan or Nepal if they were playing Tests. They must have forgotten how the Bangladesh Team had humiliated England in the Second Test in Dhaka recently and batted for 127 overs in the first innings in Hyderabad.
Bangladesh's embarrassment in Test cricket as underlined by the huge number of losses is now to some extent self-inflicted. It could be reversed if the BCB could put some sense into the team's batsmen. A carrot and stick policy could be useful that the BCB should adopt to bring common sense in the team.
POSTSCRIPT: Mushfiqur Rahim defended his atrocious stroke in the second innings stating it was deliberate to push the fielders back. It was a strange admission that should tell the BCB that although the Captain's batting abilities have become world class, his maturity to lead the team has declined.
The writer is a former Ambassador.
serajul7@gmail.com