Asia Cup Cricket in retrospect

India won the Asia Cup in style - and deservedly. The Bangladesh team that did not give itself much chance to win surprised itself and all cricket lovers in the country and those watching worldwide with the way it played all the way to the final match. On the way it beat two heavyweights of world cricket Sri Lanka and Pakistan, the former the 2014 and reigning ICC 20/20 champion and the latter, the ICC 20/20 champion for 2007.
Therefore from any angle, the Bangladesh team should feel proud of their performance. At the same time, there is no need to be over-excited. Their victories over Sri Lanka and Pakistan have been against teams that are on the decline - and very badly where even the UAE looked likely to beat them. The Pakistan team, with the exception of Shoaib Malik, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Mohammad Amir, looked like a team lost in a maze. Khurram Manzoor, who had no recent or past performances to find a place in the Pakistan team, was a "passenger" in the side. Mohammad Sami was also another "passenger" in the team. At a very crucial moment of the final match, he gave away a four where just a single was warranted because he has become too heavy to bend to pick up a ball. That pathetic performance was in the 17th over when Bangladesh suddenly was left to score 26 runs from 14 balls and was under pressure having just lost Shakib al-Hasan to an atrocious and stupid shot. The four eased the pressure leaving 19 runs to be scored from the last 12 balls. Then Sami bowled that over and again looked totally unfit as he gave away 16 runs in that crucial over leaving Bangladesh with only three runs for the final over.
The 19th over not just put Sami in perspective but with what is wrong with the Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi. He has passed his best form as a batsman years ago in 50/50 and 20/20 formats. It is his match taking abilities in these formats that have been keeping him in the Pakistan team. As a captain, he never showed any thinking ability. In the Asia Cup, his bowling arm deserted him making him like Khurram Manzoor, a "passenger" in the team. His captaincy in Asia Cup has been deplorable and at its worst against Bangladesh. He left his team with Mohammad Sami to bowl the crucial 19th over and had Anwar Ali for the 20th while his best two bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Irfan were left watching the game as he had bowled them their quotas before the game entered the crucial overs.  
No wonder this Pakistan team were looking for excuses to skip the World Cup raising security reasons. Except the return of Mohammad Amir to a form better than what he had before he had forced himself to a five-year ban for match fixing, there was very little in the Pakistani team to make even its die-hard supporters smile.
Sri Lanka's case was like Pakistan's - its inability to replace past stars such as Kumar Sangakara, Mahela Jayawardene or Muttiah Muralitharan with a new crop of players was quite evident. Lasith Malinga was chosen to lead the team but the fragility of his physique was exposed in the game against UAE that he helped Sri Lanka win. But when he was needed as in the games against Bangladesh and Pakistan, he was in the dugout on the issue of physical fitness, watching his team lose the games frustratingly, woefully short on ability to win any big game.
India, of course, came to Dhaka prepared the best of all the teams in the contest. India's ability with IPL to spin money for cricket, cricketers and cricket organisations worldwide has put it in an unenviable position. For instance, it was given by Australia a long tour before the 2014 50/50 World Cup making it after the Australian Team, the team most in tune with the conditions in which the World Cup was played. As the Team Manager Ravi Sastri said after the Indian Team had taken the Asia Cup in Dhaka, his team had come to Dhaka on the wings of international cricket they had played in the weeks and months before the Asia Cup in India and abroad. If one were to look how much cricket India played thanks to the nod of the ICC over which it has a stranglehold, it would be easily evident that ICC had been unfair to the other teams that played in the Asia Cup in Dhaka like it had been unfair to most teams that played in the 2014 World Cup in Australia.
Nevertheless, the Indians, some of the above facts notwithstanding, have cricketers in their present team who stand a class above the teams they played in Dhaka. Therefore, the Bangladesh cricket fans should have no reason to feel sorry that their team was beaten. All said, of course, 20/20 game is a format where unlikely things are likely to happen any moment.
The Bangladesh team apparently forgot the final was reduced to a 15/15 over game. If it had not, Mahmudullah Ryad should have come ahead of Mushfiqur Rahim who is woefully out of form. In fact, Mahmudullah Ryad should have also come ahead of Shakib al-Hasan and he should also have been given the chance to bowl ahead of Shakib who was not given his full quota in the Pakistan League he played before the Asia Cup because his bowling form was not good. As for Shakib, his slog sweep of Ashwin was also a big blunder. Someone in the team's management should have told him that in new spells, Ashwin was most likely to take a wicket with his first ball. Earlier against Pakistan, Shakib's audacity to flick Amir's ball out of the middle stump was an unforgivable stupidity.
Finally on the skipper Mashrafe Mortaza and his mindset, it has to be admitted that his two fours allowing him to score 12 against Pakistan showed Bangladesh the way to victory after Shakib's stupidity. But of the two fours, the second one was a stroke that even a non-cricketer could have played. He had no clue where the ball was going and put his bat in front of his body and the ball just ran to the boundary after hitting it!  Based on those two fours, he thought he was better than Mahmudullah and decided to come ahead of him in the reduced final! Suppose he had stuck around for an over or two; he would then have Mahmudullah waiting in the dugout! Such a mindset does not speak well of a good skipper. His bowling is now a run of the mill effort, devoid of any pace.
The best thing to come for Bangladesh out of the Asia Cup has been the fact that there are now a number of players who are threatening the once irreplaceable players in the Team. At the present moment, the irreplaceable players are feeling somewhat nervous about it and the management should put an arm around their shoulders and convince them to take things easy and tell them that what is happening to them is only a part of cricket.
The writer is a retired Ambassador.
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