Is the Sri Lankan series last for Bangladesh?

The Sri Lankans have arrived in Bangladesh to play a two Test series together with a number of limited over games of the 50-overs and the T20. The two sides met in Sri Lanka last year. They played a very close series in which the Sri Lankans won by a 1-0 margin. Bangladeshi cricket lovers watched that series and concluded that after playing Test matches for over a decade during which it humiliated itself and the country, Bangladesh were finally showing positive signs of its ability to take the best opponents that a Test cricket had to offer.

In that series, Bangladesh achieved its highest score in a Test innings of 638 in which Mushfiqur Rahim scored a double hundred. In the series against New Zealand that followed, Bangladesh were able to draw in two Test matches played. The Bangladesh Test team was showing potentials to emerge as a Test-playing nation to challenge the best in the game. As a team, Bangladesh were coming together to show its ability to last over five days where previously it was unable to last more than three days. In fact, up to the Sri Lankan series, Bangladesh were losing Test matches within three days and many by margins of innings.

On the individual level, Shakib al-Hasan became the best all-rounder in both Test and One-day cricket and has held that ranking over a significant period of time. At the time of writing this piece, he is still the number one Test and One-day all-rounder. With the likes of Jacques Kallis competing for the coveted title, this is a status that should place Bangladesh as a Test-playing nation on the rise.  Added to the achievements of Shakib al-Hassan, Tamim Iqbal has been included with him in a World Eleven. Additionally, in the last series with New Zealand last year, a youngster Momin ul Huq scored back-to-back centuries with one near a double hundred. Sohag Gazi became the first Test cricketer in Test cricket's over a hundred years of history to take a hat-trick in an innings with five wickets and a century while batting. With these brilliant cricketers, there is a handful more that has the ability to play with the best opponents in Test cricket.

When Bangladesh's Test cricket is at such an unbelievable ascendancy where only a couple of years ago no one bothered with it as a Test-playing country comes the news that at the ICC (International Cricket Council) meeting on January 28-29, Bangladesh could lose its Test-playing status. At that meeting, the Finance and Commercial Affairs Committee of the ICC would place for consideration a series of proposals on a wide range of issues that would include one aimed at becoming the death knell of Test cricket for Bangladesh. These proposals have been initiated by Test cricket's three leading nations, namely India, Australia and England.

If approved, one of the proposals would take away the Test-playing status of two of the 10 Test-playing nations, namely Zimbabwe placed the 9th and Bangladesh the tenth. These two nations would be relegated to the six other Associate Members of the ICC for the next eight years. After that period, if Bangladesh were to come on top of that list, it would be allowed to play with the last ranked among the Test-playing nations. If it defeated that nation, it would once again play Test cricket while the nation it would defeat would be relegated to the ranks of the Associate Members. This part of the proposals that would come up on January 28-29 at the ICC meeting does not only send Bangladesh into Test-cricketing wilderness, it also makes its return to Test cricket after that period very uncertain. Any of the eight nations in the list of Associate Members would have the same chance as Bangladesh of moving upwards and not just Bangladesh alone.  This part of the proposal is not just a death knell for Test cricket future of Bangladesh, it smacks of unfairness because it assures that of the eight Test-playing nations, those who initiated the proposal, namely Australia, England and India, would never be relegated to the level of Associate Members. Of these, England has just been humiliated by Australia with a 5-0 series bashing that would have embarrassed the likes of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

While the proposals to be considered in the ICC meeting on January 28-29 are extremely bad news for Bangladesh, what is even more surprising and worse is the fact that the BCB (Bangladesh Cricket Board) has adopted a resolution by 20-3 to back these proposals, including the relegation of Bangladesh from being a Test-playing country to the level on a non-Test playing nation as an Associate Member. In a meeting with the media, the BCB president stated that it would be good for cricket of Bangladesh to support the proposals! There are, of course, financial and other aspects in the proposals that would be considered of which the BCB President has not stated anything. To give the devil it's due, one would have to hold giving a final opinion without the details of the other proposals being spelt out.

Unfortunately for the BCB, the media has carried the news in a manner that made readers conclude that the BCB decided to vote by 20-3 because the proposals have the backing of India! Former President of the BCB and now a minister as well as a vice-president of the ICC Mustafa Kamal, in an interview with ESPN, has stated that the chance of the ICC withdrawing Bangladesh's Test status will depend on "extraordinary majority" and hence the BCB should try and get the necessary votes, four out of the 10 Test playing nations at present, to defeat the Indian move to take away Bangladesh's Test status. Among the 10 countries that would vote, there is no doubt that Zimbabwe would vote against the proposal. Sri Lanka has said it would do the same. Bangladesh needs two more votes to defeat the Indian proposal.

This being the situation, the 20-3 margin vote with which the BCB decided to support the proposals at the ICC meeting, including the one that would become the death warrant for Bangladesh as a Test playing nation, is totally unacceptable. The fact that it has come at a time when Bangladesh is at its best as a Test-playing country is both strange and mysterious. Is it that the Board took the decision because it has been initiated by India? The news items that have been carried in the media give the clear impression that the Board was encouraged to take the 20-3 decision to kill Test cricket in Bangladesh to please India. This has placed the BCB on a political quicksand where only India could come to its rescue.

For Pakistan, the meeting on January 28-29 would be one to relish. Given Bangladesh's present relation with it, Pakistan would no doubt vote to send Bangladesh to Test wilderness with a bonus to make India's standing in Bangladesh suspect. The 20-3 vote by the BCB hints that Bangladesh itself would vote against itself at the ICC meeting to please India. It is, therefore, urgent for cricket lovers of Bangladesh to come together and force the BCB to change its absurd 20-3 vote and take up the line suggested by former President of BCB Mustafa Kamal and make a determined move in the few days remaining for the ICC meeting to save Test cricket in Bangladesh.

The writer is a retired                              career Ambassador. [email protected]