Bangladesh in Cricket World Cup 2015: An assessment

The Bangladesh Cricket Team performed exceptionally well in the World Cup 2015 but largely compared to its own past performances. Its major achievement was the fact that it stamped its arrival in the group of the "blue bloods" in international cricket and that too by condemning the bluest of the "blue bloods", namely the English team representing the country that gave birth to cricket itself. In the group of cricket's "blue bloods", or precisely in the knock-out stage of the World Cup 2015, Bangladesh lost to India in what was the quarter-final game.
What happened in the quarter final game is now history. There were three umpiring decisions in that game that aroused the passions of cricket lovers in the country to patriotic zeal. Bangladesh's Mustafa Kamal forgot his duties and obligations as the President of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and hurriedly went to the media in the height of that patriotic zeal over the match in Bangladesh. He alluded that the umpires had acted in a premeditated manner in giving the wrong umpiring decisions to defeat Bangladesh and ensure an Indian victory. There were insinuations in his statement of collusion between the ICC and Indian cricket officials.
Bangladesh's star cricketer, Shakib Al-Hasan underlined that such an argument does not stand to serious scrutiny. In a media interview in Dhaka, Shakib said that umpiring errors are a part of international cricket. On certain days, it can go against Bangladesh while on others, in its favour. In fact, in that controversial match, Imrul Qayes got the benefit of a blatant umpiring error. He had nicked the ball to the wicket keeper that was apparent to all who were watching the game. Yet the umpire ignored the nick.
The Bangladesh media, however, saw nothing wrong in the statement of the ICC president, who later resigned over the issue. It concluded that he was correct in suggesting conspiracy between the umpires and the ICC cricket officials. The media hype also encouraged the general cricket lovers in Bangladesh to assume that Bangladesh would have won the game against India if there were no such conspiracy.
The media hype over the game against India and the team's victory against the English team turned the Bangladesh cricket team into national heroes with events galore for them on their return home. Chittagong had built the biggest-ever ceremonial gate to honour the team but the celebrations were postponed due to elections in the port city. The Prime Minister received the team in her office to congratulate the players.
But is it not that such honours are given to a national team that returns home with the championship trophy? It would be interesting to find a parallel where a national team, to put facts bluntly, returned home after losing in the tournament in the quarterfinal stage and has been given honour the same way the Bangladesh team has been since returning from the World Cup 2015. For the sake of curiosity, it would be interesting to know the answer. What if Bangladesh had reached the semi-final? And the final? What if it had won the championship? The nation would have then gone crazy going by the euphoria that has been created with the team losing at the quarter-final on a competition where there were only 14 teams in all competing!
That is not all. The felicitations are being accorded to the Bangladesh team based upon assumptions that do not stand to serious scrutiny. One is that Bangladesh was wrongly forced out by the umpires through a conspiracy with the ICC that robbed it of its chances in competition. A dispassionate look at the Bangladesh-India game would give a different perspective. Supposing Rohit Sharma was given out at 194, India would still have been strongly placed. There were 9.2 overs left and there were Dhoni and Jadeja yet to come. In this year's World Cup, most teams in such a position have managed an additional 100 runs and more. Thus with or without Rohit Sharma, India would have scored those 300 runs or close to it anyway. Suresh Raina's not out cannot be called a wrong decision because the ball was pitched, even if only very slightly, outside the line of the stumps. In such a situation with the DR system, the benefit of doubt goes always to the batsman. Finally, even if Mahmudullah Ryad was given not out when he was 29, it would be jumping to conclusion to expect that he would have carried Bangladesh to victory because in the end, the Bangladesh team lost by a huge margin of 109 runs!
Bangladesh's victory over England, admirable as it was, was against an English team that had hit the nadir in terms of its playing ability and confidence in all its games in the qualifying stage. Bangladesh, in fact, had beaten a much stronger English team in the 2011 World Cup in Dhaka! A lot has also been said about Bangladesh's performance against New Zealand. It undoubtedly played a very competitive game against the New Zealanders. However, it was Brendan McCullum's style of attacking captaincy that had allowed Bangladesh to score 288 that in the end the New Zealanders chased down without too much tension. McCullum, prior to the Bangladesh match, had used his bowlers in an attacking manner to get the opponents all out and wanted to do the same with Bangladesh. Thus he did not make checking runs an option and attacked to take wickets that gave Bangladesh at least 30-40 additional runs.
Bangladesh team can take pride in chasing 300 plus against Scotland but the fact it had allowed a team such as Scotland to score 300 plus must also be taken in assessing the team. The Sri Lanka team was by no means one of the competition's top teams. Yet it beat Bangladesh convincingly; Bangladesh managing only 240 all out to Sri Lanka's 322/1. Bangladesh was also lucky it did not have to play Australia, the ultimate champions, because that could have seriously dented its confidence for it would be imagining too much to think that it could have stood up to the Australian pacers in Australian conditions. Instead, due to rain, Bangladesh shared one point from that game that was a great psychological advantage going to the game against England.
Nevertheless, there have been many exceptional performances by Bangladeshi players in the competition. Mahmudullah's back-to-back centuries established him as a top batsman in the Cup. Rubel brushed shoulders with the top fast bowlers. There were commendable performances from others, Mushfique, for instance, and Mashrafe who showed inexperience as a captain at the top level but made it up with his bowling as well as his big heart.
It was for the first time that at the international stage, Bangladesh team was able to shed its "minnow" status. No team and no cricket commentator, including the "patronising" Indians, were able to sideline Bangladesh as a pushover. But all said, the euphoria over the team after its return is difficult to justify for the simple reason that in the end it did not go near enough to winning the Cup and based on its performances, no one outside Bangladesh gave it any chance of it. The only chance that Bangladesh had of touching the Cup was that of Mustafa Kamal handing the Cup to the winner which he squandered through some ill-advised criticism of the very organisation he had headed.
The Bangladesh Team will now play Pakistan on home ground. It is a Pakistan team in a flux. Nevertheless, it is not a team to be taken lightly. The felicitations to the team however seem to have rubbed wrongly on some members of the Bangladesh team to state in the media that they have a genuine chance of beating Pakistan that will only create unnecessary pressure. Over and above all, the conflict with the ICC and India over the India-Bangladesh game may also not bring good tidings for Bangladesh cricket because of the power that the two have to help or harm development of cricket in Bangladesh. For future of our cricket, we need both on our side.
The writer is a former Ambassador.
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