West Indies in Bangladesh - Nov to Dec 2012/13

That West Indies are able to dominate the deshis so easily, and yet are cannon fodder themselves against the big guns, surely sounds alarm bells at the ICC

I heard the stat again the other day that I think the only three Tests the deshis have won is over a weakened West Indies side and Zimbabwe I think they said

Bangladesh (Tests)

Home : P38 W1 D5 L32 (Won 2.63%, Lost 84.21%)
Away : P36 W2 D2 L32 (Won 5.55%, Lost 88.89%)
Total : P74 W3 D7 L64 (Won 4.05%, Lost 86.49%)

They've won two series, one at home to Zimbabwe 1-0 and one against a weak and windies side in West Indies 2-0. They've lost 35 out of 37 series, that's nearly 95% . Surely if they were gonna improve they would have done so by now, even some of the young talents in the side when we last played them aren't changing their results. Even making a fist of it against this lot would be something
 
Totally legal looking bowling action from Sohag Gazi

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They've won two series, one at home to Zimbabwe 1-0 and one against a weak and windies side in West Indies 2-0. They've lost 35 out of 37 series, that's nearly 95% . Surely if they were gonna improve they would have done so by now, even some of the young talents in the side when we last played them aren't changing their results. Even making a fist of it against this lot would be something

To be fair, it does take time for a Test nation to develop. It took Pakistan, India and SL a few decades to develop into world class teams.
 
BD need stability. A stable domestic structure, a stable coaching structure, stable selectors. They need players who are picked at 20 to stay in the frame till their 30s, not just replaced halfway through. They need a core group.

And they are getting there now. They have a core group of players - Mushfiqur, Shakib, Tamim, Mahmadullah, Razzak, Mortaza, Rubel, Shahadat.
They have new, young talent coming up - Sunny, Gazi, Abul Hassan, Nasir Hossain.
They have competition for a few spots - Imrul Kayes, Nafees, Nazimuddin, Junaid Siddique for the opener/number 3, Naeem Islam, Jahurul Islam, Shuvagatom Hom and Raqibul Hasan for the middle order, Robiul Islam, Shaiful Islam for the seamer's spot. And they even have a T20 specialist in Ziaur Rahman.

They've even moved beyond Ashraful and have dropped him for good.

Progress is being made. They're moving in the right direction. They just need some time.

Hopefully by the time Tamim, Shakib, Rahim, Mahmadullah are in their 30s and experienced, they'll have a good group of players around them, and the side will be stable, strong and competitive. It's easy to forget that that lot are only aged 23, 25, 24 and 26 respectively.

They will also naturally have some limitations, which will need a massive overhaul in the coaching and domestic structure to overcome - the physical strength of their players, for one. The side is full of attacking strokemakers, but they don't have anyone around who can just muscle the ball over the boundary, no powerful big hitters like every other nation has (Yuvraj, Dhoni, Dilshan, Gayle, Watson, Wright, KP, Pollard, Perera, Morkel, De Villiers, etc etc). Ziaur Rahman and Mortaza are the closest they have to one. This means they do struggle to up the tempo on conditions that don't lend themselves to strokemaking. And then ofcourse, the lack of stamina could be one factor that hinders their players from making big 100s - guys like Cook, Dravid, Pujara, Clarke, Amla, etc. posses incredible stamina and fitness.
One of the reasons for this lack of physical edge could be genetics, the other could be the general developing-nation lifestlye, culture and diet of the Bangladesh, and another could be simply that most players are thrown into playing high level cricket when they are too young, and aren't well looked after in the off-seasons to ensure they train and develop this side of their cricket. Domestic cricket in BD is very unprofessional.

This also lends itself to the second problem, no pure pace bowlers. Which, as has been seen in this match, is hindering them. Their fastest is Rubel, and he can't match up to the pure quicks that again, so many teams have. India have struggled with this too. And for the same reasons. Dead pitches, intense cricket schedule, and no good coaching structure in place to look after the quicks as they develop.

And then finally, their is the issue of temperament. Lack of a winning culture, lack of focus, lack of grit, losing concentration, lack of consistency. This can be put down to inexperience, and a poor domestic structure. They need more 4 day games, they need a higher quality of domestic competition, and they need a culture that emphasizes more on picking sides with 4 bowlers 7 batsmen rather than having 3-4 allrounders (which allows sides to post high scores without needing big innings from the main batsmen, and allows a lot of bowlers to share the overs and increases the chance of one of them having a good day and running through a side, rather than emphasizing a bowling unit attacking as a team and building pressure on days which wickets don't come, rather than just rotating through bowlers till one hits a good rhythm).

But all this will improve with time.
 
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it would be good if they played a lot more 4 day FC cricket. (do they play any? is it not all 3 day?)

papa smurf is right, time frame wise they're fine, it's that they play so many freaking tests that their win loss ratio is horrendous. and then people say the reason they don't do well is because they don't play enough, they need to get better domestically, it should be tougher to get a call up to the squad and players coming in should be more prepared, the only way to do that is if they're coming in having has better coaching from a younger age and more FC cricket.
 
To be fair, it does take time for a Test nation to develop. It took Pakistan, India and SL a few decades to develop into world class teams.

"into world class teams", nobody is asking them to be "world class", competitive is what is being asked. Let's have a look see their records after the same number of Tests, and I will include this one (as another defeat) And let's not forget, these were in the day when there were no Zimbabwe's or West Indies at a low ebb, in those days the opposition were all decent or better.

After 75 Tests

Bangladesh (2000) : P75 W3 D7 L65 (Won 4.00%)

Zimbabwe (1992) : P75 W8 D25 L42 (Won 10.67%)
Sri Lanka (1982) : P75 W9 D32 L34 (Won 12.00%)

Pakistan (1952) : P75 W11 D43 L21 (Won 14.67%)
India (1932) : P75 W6 D40 L29 (Won 8.00%)
New Zealand (1930) : P75 W3 D35 L37 (Won 4.00%)
West Indies (1928) : P75 W24 D24 L27 (Won 32.00%)

South Africa (1888) : P75 W14 D19 L42 (Won 18.67%)

Australia (1877) : P75 W30 D13 L32 (Won 40.00%)
England (1877) : P75 W37 D12 L26 (Won 49.33%)


While I could also put in the percentage of losses, you can see noone else is ANYWHERE NEAR 65 losses out of 75 so they were all reasonably competitive even if not winning that often. Zimbabwe have had really rough recent years, but to draw 1/3 of their Tests shows what is possible even early on.

The kiwis only won three Tests, but at a time when you didn't have any easy games with the aussies, England and South Africa inflicting 26 of their 37 defeats, and they drew not far off half their games.

Next most defeats are Zimbabwe and South Africa with 42 in their first 75 games, about 2/3 of what Bangadesh have suffered. West Indies lost 25 out of 27 to the aussies and England.

I think it has a lot less to do with time and a lot more to do with domestic infastructure, resources etc. Most sides reasonably managed 8-10% or more, obviously the earlier the sides played their first Test the less sides there were around.
 
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yeah owzat, but as smurf and myself said, it's the time frame, not the number of matches. it took india 20 years to win a test, new zealand took 25 years, sri lanka won 2 in their first 10 years of test cricket.

I wouldn't pretend bangladesh haven't disappointed but 75 tests in their first 12 years of international cricket was far too many.
 
Also, consider that India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka all had some sort of Cricket infrastructure left behind in their country as a result of the British empire. India and Pakistan had dozens of cricket grounds built and used before 1947, and Sri Lanka has atleast 6 that were in use during then.

Compare that to BD, whose cricket facilities are all very recent - their oldest ground was set up in 1954, and most of their facilities have only come into place in the 2000s.

India also benefited with their strong English connections, with quite a few of their early Test cricketers playing in England before and during their Test careers. And Pakistan in turn had a couple of former Indian players in their ranks.

Even New Zealand would have had more of a head start, although I haven't looked into their history. But one would presume their closeness to a cricket super-power like Australia would have meant a decent standard of cricket facilities in place, as well as some inflow of decent talent too.

BD, on the other hand, have come up in an era where their players can't go and play overseas in England or India easily , and didn't have a strong amount of cricketing infrastructure in place before they were promoted to Test level.

They also haven't had a lot of sides such as the MCC teams, or special assorted XIs, or A Teams touring to play them.

Only way out of their current predicament is to get some stability in place, sort out the domestic system, and work hard.
 
Ye plus Windies didn't a series until 1950 in england, some 20 years after their debut (although i think they won a test match fairly early) and South Africa after their 1895 start, were not really a competitive team until the mid 1950's (although i believe they won a series vs a weakened england team in 1936 or something).

Pakistan was the only team to come into cricket and be fairly competitive within 5 years. They famously beat australia, windies after starting in 1952.


So in a lot of ways Bangladesh slow start is fairly consistent with historical trends.
 
I really dont know much about Bangladesh Cricket.
but the Way i have seen they played against WI I dont think they are crap.
First Test Match, Nearly had a Chance of winning it. but Failed.
in the 2nd Test Match, been 5 down for 85 and to get close to WI total with 1 day to go. I think a little More effort in the 2nd Inning can Make them better. They prove they can Play a good first innings , just the 2nd innings is the Problem.
This was Simular to WI during 2011-2012 with a Very Very unexperiance Team. Failing in the 2nd Innings. against India and Aussie.
 
From a West Indies perspective in this test series i see a team that can soon challenge Australia, England & S Africa in tests once they remove Sammy from the test team and reintegrate Sarwan & Jerome Taylor.

But given the ridiculousness of the future tours programmes the West Indies don't have any major test series vs those big sides in the next 2-3 years & still have to unbelievably play new zealand & bangladesh in test series in the next 18 months :facepalm
 
Ishaque has dug this up: "Gazi is the first bangladeshi ODI debutant to bowl his first over as maiden wicket but he also bowled the most expensive first over in test for bangladesh as a debutant."

That's a fun fact.

I like that Gazi has made Gayle his bunny.

Tidy start by BD with the ball too.
 

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