Bangladesh cricket shows us mirror

On the face of it most of you may either mock at me or may not even bother to read it after seeing such caption since Pakistan is not pitched against Bangladesh but South Africa which I also do know but yet please do not jump up to conclusion so fast and instead wait for a while and let me put forward my arguments and then you will be on my side and not against me I can bet on my life to be honest rather dead honest.

Just few weeks back only our so called star studded national cricket team has been completely beaten in all the three tests it played in South African against the host country and it will be nothing but futile on my part to go into the details as to what has happened on the foreign soil. Why did we fail to win the 1^st test to start with even though our imported coach who is very handsomely paid had been too loud to proclaim that our teams is the best one ever produced in Pakistan so it will win and win. Our fancied captain Misbah after tasting 1^st defeat said that it is our sheer bad luck that we lost though we were poised to win the match. However, he said we will reverse the decision in the next test match but there again Pakistan was routed by the host team. Now before playing the last and the final 3rd test Misbah again pronounced that at least we will now win the test to console ourselves to some extent but the luck continued laughing at us whether we liked it or not. Does any Pakistani whether living in Pakistan or overseas remember what time and gain our chairman of PCB had boasted of winning the series by our team before their departure to SA? Has someone saved the proud claims made by the honorable members of our cricket selection team in connection with winning in SA? I think it is better to drop it as it otherwise it is nothing but waste of time in writing and waste of space in publishing.

Bangladesh is playing test matches against Sri Lanka in SL and just today their 1^st test match has ended up as a draw but nevertheless the match is lesson learning for Pakistan in particular and rest in general. As per International Cricket Council (ICC) which is an umbrella organization for all crickets playing countries it is established that Sri Lanka has 3318 points with 92 ranking while Bangladesh is at the bottom rung of the table with no points and no rating simply because it has not played enough test matches to be qualified to be rated as a test playing nation which in other words prove that Bangladesh is relatively a new entrant in the arena of playing test matches. Sri Lanka has scored 3318 points while its rating is at serial 6 amongst all test playing nations while Bangladesh is at placed at the bottom of the table with no points to boast of whereas Pakistan is a step ahead of Sri Lanka since it us ranked at serial 5 with 3444 points and such like statistics very well proves in quite crystal clear terms without even slightest shadow of doubt that poor Bangladesh is facing quite a highly ranked team which has once even won World Cup.

Having said so now I will come to the 1^st test match which has been played in Sri Lankan city of Galle from 8^th instant till yesterday (12^th) where the game was not played till the last over of the match as is always the case and instead it was mutually agreed upon by all the parties concerned to call it off earlier simply because the match has entered into such a stage that there was not even the slightest possibility for any of the teams to win the match so it was felt prudent as to why not to end it sooner and save strength and energies of the players. Luckily the weather was so good that there was no rain at all which is not that common in that part of the world and fortunately the game was not disturbed. Sri Lanka had won the toss and elected to bat before its home crowd and such on the very face of it the decision has eventually paid the dividends but it was short lived only as explained hereinafter.

Its opening pair namely FDM Karunaratne and TM Dilshan opened the innings and when Sri Lanka had posted as much as 570 runs for the loss of just 4 wickets its captain AD Mathews opted to stop batting anymore and instead took a decision to declare so that the visiting Bangladeshis could start their batting in 1^st innings. In this mammoth score of 570 runs three Sri Lankans have scored in three figures i.e. HDRL Thrimanne 155 who even remained not out, KC Sangakkara 142 and LD Chandimal 116. Needless to mention Bengalis have gifted 35 extra runs to Sri Lankans who otherwise had scored just 535 runs to tell you the truth. Now comes the real crunch when less experienced with no test ranking Bangladeshis faced SL to reply to its score of 570 runs. It was really a daunting task for any opening pair what to talk of Bengalis to bat under such odd conditions in a foreign land when the opponents had posted so much score and that too after losing only 4 wickets. Jauharul Islam and Inamul Haq (debut) facing the toughest possible challenge of their lives opened the innings for Bangladesh and as the bad luck had its opener Jahurul Islam had scored only 20 runs when he was sent back at the total score of 23 only.  Mohammad Ashraful was the next man replacing Jahur but when the score was 65 only the other opener Inamul Haq too was declared out which as such had created more problems for the visitors but what they could do otherwise. Sri Lankan players, selectors and crowd must have thought that now the rest of the visitors may not even score more than between 150 to 200 runs and perhaps some others too would have thought alike. However, Bengalis known as Tigers proved it otherwise since it posted 638 runs all out meaning by it has scored 68 runs more than what SL had scored. What a coincidence that three Bengalis also scored centuries as Musshfiqur Rehman being captain played real captain innings and scored 2 centuries and not just 1 whereas Mohammad Ashraful having scored 190 was short by 10 runs only to be double centurion and of course Nasir Husaain was the 3^rd person to reach 100. Dilshand and Sangakkar scored 126 and 105 respectively in SL’s second innings which was again declared at 335 for the loss of 4 wickets. Now Bangladesh had to score as much as 268 runs in very short period of time which was next to impossible for any team what to talk of Bangladesh to score and win the game in too short period of time which SL knew it very well but yet it dragged on to score more runs in 2^nd innings so that due to paucity of time Bengalis could never ever score so much runs. SL had gambled in a sense that they have put the visitors under psychological pressure and had calculated that may be they cannot withstand the pressure and may succumb to the surmounting pressure. Jauharul Islam and Inmaul Haq again opened the 2^nd innings and Anamul Haq was back in the pavilion just when he had scored 1 run and team’s total score was just 2. Sky had fallen on Bangalis and it was so suffocating for the visitors that they could hardly breathe what to talk of facing the onslaught of the host team. The home crows danced wildly and they were a bit assured of success a few hours later but Ashraful Islam and Jauharul Islam batted so confidently that SL had lost all the hopes and decided to stop the game and hence the 1^st test came to a draw

As per ICC ranking Sri Lankan batsmen Sangakkara, Mathews (captain) and Dilshan are ranked at serial 5, 27 and 29 respectively very well prove that they are well placed batsmen whereas for Bangladeshis there are two in the list namely Mushfiqur Rehman and Nasir Hussain listed at rung 41 and 53 respectively meaning by that they are not short by 1 recognized batsman but also its pair is low rated than Sri Lankans in any case. Coming back to Pakistan we find that as many as 5 of our players i.e. Younus, Azhar, Misbah, Asad and Hafeez which played against South Africa in recent 3 tests are positioned at 10, 12, 16, 23 and 40 respectively which clearly proves that they are far better than Bangalis. Pakistan scored 253 and 49 in 1^st test while South Africa scored 275 and 268 respectively and therefore it won with a big margin of 211 runs. In the second test we scored 169 and 182 while hosts netted 326 and 338 resulting in that we were defeated by 4 wickets. In the last test they scored 409 in one innings which we replied with 156 and 235 runs and therefore we had to taste defeat for 3^rd time too by an innings and 18 runs.

May be you have forgotten but not me that was back when Bangladesh was just in infancy stage it has defeated Pakistan at no venue than World Cup in 1999 which as such was the biggest ever upset in cricket test history. How many times Bangla Desh whom we still do not rate will show us mirror? What you say now?

Iqbal Hadi Zaidi / Kuwait