There is no semblance of doubt that Cricket made Bangladesh proud in the sporting arena over the past few years.
It required several years of sacrifices and contributions of several individuals and groups to take cricket to a level where Bangladesh graduated from a level of mere pushovers to a team capable of competing against the best of the best in all formats.
Especially in ODI cricket Bangladesh reached a stage where they threatened to beat any team on their day. Fabulous five (Mashrafe, Shakib, Tamim, Mushfique and Mahmudullah) assisted by some budding youngsters Mustafiz, Soumya, Sabbir, Taskin and Mominul made Team Tigers a team to reckon with.
Bangladesh should have built on from a position of promise to a position of sustainability through proper planning and professional implementation. Domestic cricket formats, playing facilities, management of teams should have had professional structure of transparency and accountability. Consequently Bangladesh after such brilliant showing in 2016 and 2017 is now depleting to its early days getting white washed to Afghanistan and West Indies. Need deep soul searching.
Unfortunately for completely unprofessional BCB (No transparency and no accountability) the successes could not be sustained and Bangladesh cricket is now in all sorts of crisis. The fabulous five appears to be over the hills and promising youngsters could not be mentored appropriately for pushing the seniors or challenging them. A pipeline of quality cricketers could not be created. None could grow to challenge Tamim, Shakib, Mushfique and Mahmudullah.
No one could grow to match Mashrafe as a quality new ball bowler. Mustafiz and Taskin could not mature as expected. Soumya and Sabbir could not get consistent. A very high quality Mominul did not get right attention. His confidence appeared to have been shattered. When every other team even Afghanistan and Nepal could find a match winning leg spinner Bangladesh could not.
Without Mashrafe and Mustafiz, Bangladesh pace attack looks very ordinary. Bangladesh batsmen against quality pace attack on pacey wickets looks like novice. They cannot be blamed either as they are not accustomed playing against such bowling on such wickets and environment. In recent times Sri Lankan Head Coach Hathurusingha could exploit the maximum quality of the team in reaching to some level. He too did not help grow some quality players under the shadow of seniors. He developed issues with senior players. As such he abandoned the team at a stage when Bangladesh required some quality cricket brain for mentoring the team.
BCB could not find quality Cricket coaching staff for months .They did not even seek assistance of quality Bangladeshi cricket brains Aminul Islam Bulbul, Salahuddin, Sarwar Imran, Fahim and others. After protracted delays they found an English Coach of unproven track record and a South African batting Coach. The cricket culture, ethics and aptitudes of England and South Africa is very different. We are not sure how much they can contribute.
Bangladesh desperately needs overhauling domestic format, produce at least few green top bouncy wickets, organise local cricket in fair and competitive manner, making all national players play in domestic cricket , develop players for specific formats (T20, ODI and Test). There must be authentic age level, school and regional cricket for creating quality pipelines. Four of five players cannot serve Bangladesh cricket years after years. It has to be a professional accountable BCB for doing all these. I do not think present BCB is competent for any of the above.
Domestic Cricket Can Not Produce Quality Cricketers
Bangladesh copying IPL created BPL. While IPL helped India creating quality young players of international standard BPL served the purpose of International players. Bangladesh even could not prove a competitive team in T20 international. The longer version cricket lacks enthusiasm, played on low slow, substandard wickets. Umpires are not allowed to adjudicate fairly. A certain team is favored. National players hardly appear. Those faring well in domestic cricket years after years are ignored in national team. In such situation when Bangladesh plays Test cricket abroad they struggle to perform. Everyone knows where the short comings are, what are the issues? But not takes initiatives to cure . From the present depleting state of Bangladesh cricket we are concerned what will happen in two to three years when top five would gradually fade away. Bangladesh would struggle competing against emerging Afghanistan and Ireland.
BCB Cricket Operation must give due attention for restructuring domestic cricket. Australia, India and even Sri Lanka can be example to replicate. Not only BPL type disco cricket longer versions of three or four days cricket must be given attention.
BCB may organise a talk inviting cricket brains of Bangladesh – Ashraful Huq, Tanvir Mazhar, Jalal Chowdhury, Md Quamruzzaman, Jahangir Shah, Gazi Ashraf Lipu, Yusuf Rahman, Roquibul Hasan, Shafiqul Huq Heera ,Shakil Qasem, Eshtiaque Ahmed, Amiul Islam and seek their advice. All these persons made contribution for Bangladesh. I am sure some positive suggestions would emerge.
BCB must remember that they rode on success of few established quality players who served the cricket admirably. System could not help develop other quality players. It is sad that Abdur Razzak, Naeem Islam, Tushar Imran could not continue. It is sad that Soumya, Sabbir, Rubel, Kayes and Taskin are struggling. Who would mentor them?
Policy makers must carry on soul searching. It must have been done after an apparent misunderstanding surfaced from Sri Lanka tour of Bangladesh leading to surprising declaration of Mashrafee from T20 International. There should have been authentic probe into back ground of disaster in South Africa. There are rumours of match fixing against Afghanistan in T20 series.
Bangladesh got crushing blows against West Indies in test series. We are not sure that they would perform differently in ODI and T20 also. We want to prove wrong. But in any case with ICC World Cup scheduled next year Bangladesh must have very transparent and accountable action plan.
BDST: 1217 HRS, JUL 19, 2018
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