Bangladesh running away from batting issues

The 35th over of the Bangladesh innings produced ten runs and a wicket, which was an unimportant contribution to their score and only gave West Indies the wicket of a tail-ender. An unsafe 79 for 6 became a more perilous 89 for 7.

What stuck out during this over was the constant chatter that came from the other end. Barring the first ball, Kemar Roach was bowling only short-pitched deliveries at Taijul Islam but Mahmudullah kept telling the man on strike that the next one would be a full ball. He said it after Taijul was stung on the gloves off the second ball, after he had fended the next one off his elbow guard for four leg byes, and after the next two balls, to which the No.8 again backed away.

Initially it seemed as if the senior batsman was preempting what Roach was going to bowl, and hoping that the next one would indeed be a full ball. But Mahmudullah's motive sounded like an indirect attempt at bringing Taijul to the line of the ball.

It is what club coaches sometimes do in Bangladesh when the young batsman has only just started to play with the cricket ball. The coaxing would obviously be backed up by an actual full ball and sometimes slipping in the short one, but it has often worked.

The simple reverse-psychology would work on someone only starting out on the game but Taijul was having none of that. He was not going to stand still to Roach for any one of those deliveries. Finally, he backed away and ramped the sixth ball into third-man's hand.

Taijul has a 64 in his 20 first-class matches so far, but he is a tail-ender. These days everyone in the playing XI is expected to have some gumption to hold his own, with a precondition that they would have batted at a competitive level in their formative years.

Roach's hounding of Taijul, and the batsman's sliding away from the line of the short ball each time, showed how unprepared most Bangladeshi cricketers are when they enter international cricket. The manner of his batting made it easy to realise that he was fearing getting hit, and that invariably happens when a batsman is not used to facing this sort of attack. But this cannot be an excuse for Taijul or for Bangladesh cricket.

To go a little deeper, it is indicative of how little attention is paid in pitch development even in first-class venues. The acceptance that Bangladeshi cricketers will always play on flat pitches that only offer slow pace and little bounce doesn't just trouble Taijul but the more established players like Tamim Iqbal, Nasir Hossain and Mushfiqur Rahim.

Bangladesh's cricket calendar is shaped as such that international cricket clashes with domestic cricket, and since the Dhaka clubs are opposed to playing the Premier League one-day tournament without the national players, first-class cricket doesn't see any of the senior players hone their skills regularly.

It is true for most Test countries that their international cricketers are hardly available for region, club, county or franchise but in the case of the tenth Test playing nation, such absence hurts the international cricketers as much as it constricts the domestic game.

So when the senior cricketers are repeating the same mistake in Test cricket, are being sucked into a false comfort zone or cannot easily find their way out of poor form, a lot of things are blamed, except their appearance in domestic matches.

The economy of Bangladesh cricket is kept sound by ensuring these players get to play Dhaka Premier League and the Bangladesh Premier League at every given opportunity. But when Test status was sought 14 years ago or fiercely protected earlier this year, was it done just for the "status"?

Let alone the domestic game, the idea of playing more first-class cricket against Associate Nations has never been given due attention. The BCB have made it clear in the recent past that they would avoid risking a loss to one of these lesser ranked nations. Former president AHM Mustafa Kamal dawdled for a long time before approving a T20 series against Ireland two years ago. When Bangladesh won a game there, he hastily arranged an extra game, only to lose that one.

Shane Jurgensen and before him Stuart Law requested time and again to arrange some four-day cricket against the likes of Ireland, UAE or Afghanistan but the BCB kept quiet. Nepal and Afghanistan have come out and said how little the BCB have supported them.

The connection between these decisions and how Taijul batted is long-winded but a simple route. When the BCB doesn't pay attention to the cricketing needs of the Bangladesh team, and that means skill development and the quest for constant improvement in their all-round game, the writing is on the wall for the cricketers, established in international cricket or not, to struggle in alien conditions.

Bangladesh's last tryst with a green-top was in Zimbabwe last year and they were crushed in both innings of the first Test match. In 2012 they did not face a pitch that offered pace and bounce while in 2011 it was only the West Indies and Pakistan attacks in Mirpur and Chittagong that made them uncomfortable; the year before they faced swing and seam in England for two Tests and struggled.

The other side of the argument is that Bangladesh need not change pitches at home just to prepare for conditions that they face only once or twice every year. But as has been the latest evidence in slow St Vincent and rapid St Lucia, the batting habits that have been set for years are ineffective in any conditions that are slightly different than at home.

So when Roach comes to hit Taijul, he will not listen to Mahmudullah from the other end but will continue to run away. Saving his bowling fingers, saving himself. How that reflects on a Test-playing nation is for all to see.