Patience running thin back home amid Bangladesh's batting gloom

Bangladesh's seemingly never-ending issues in the batting department remains in focus as they head into another ODI series - this time against West Indies at home - within three days of their 3-0 whitewash at the hands of Afghanistan.

There is a confidence problem within the batting group, with captain Mehidy Hasan Miraz conceding after their 200-run defeat in the third ODI that they wanted to bat 50 overs but were struggling to.

Fans are irate too. On Wednesday, one group gave the Bangladesh players an unsavoury welcome, including inflicting damage on some players' vehicles. Another group urged people to stay away from the Shere Bangla National Stadium for the first ODI against West Indies on Saturday.

Former Bangladesh captains Mohammad Ashraful and Akram Khan have both said that Bangladesh's batting approach and overall strategy in the last 12 months have left them baffled.

Ashraful, who has recently started his coaching career, said that the problems begin at the top, with Bangladesh's top-order. Only Saif Hassan, playing his maiden ODI series, played the lead in whatever starts Bangladesh got against Afghanistan. Tanzid Hasan and Najmul Hossain Shanto scored 22 runs in five innings between them. Mohammad Naim scratched around for seven in his only appearance.

The situation was slightly better against Sri Lanka in July, although Tanzid and Parvez Hossain Emon scoring a fifty each hardly made a difference to the team's performances. Shanto made 37 runs in three innings back then.

"I think the biggest concern is the lack of runs from the top order," Ashraful told ESPNcricinfo. "It has been going on for a while now. Shanto isn't scoring runs, so that's becoming a problem. In fact, the lack of runs from the top order goes back quite a long way. During the West Indies series last year, it was Mahmudullah, Jaker Ali and Mehidy Hasan Miraz bailing us out every time. We did put up reasonable totals but I kept feeling that we were at least 50 runs short in those three matches. Even before that, in the previous Afghanistan series last year, we couldn't get good starts because of poor strike rates."

Ashraful said that the lack of runs from Shanto and Litton Das, and Mehidy's lukewarm batting tempo through the middle-overs, have dented Bangladesh severely. Among the batters around the national side these days, Mehidy is the most experienced with 113 ODIs, while Litton is on 95 and Shanto 55.

Litton's ODI career has stalled after a prolonged batting drought in the format. He has scored only 35 runs in his last nine innings going back to December 2023. He has been dropped twice from ODIs, although he is a Test regular and the T20I captain.

"Whenever the team's established batters don't score runs, it makes life difficult for the rest," Ashraful said. "Litton has been in and out of the ODI team for a while now. He is sometimes out of the squad, and then they bring him in on the back of some runs in another format. He returns, and then he fails again.

"I also feel that since Mehidy began batting at No. 5, he is scoring runs but not how modern batters go about it. We are going back to our time when a batter would score 65-70 off 100 balls."

Bangladesh have been going through a batting transition in the last 24 months. Those who exited the format - Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah - possessed vast ODI experience. Tanzid, Towhid Hridoy, Mehidy and Jaker have since taken over those batting positions and the swaps haven't been smooth.

Tanzid no longer enjoys a blanket backing from the management. Hridoy's honeymoon period is long gone - he has failed to make meaningful contributions since the century against India in the Champions Trophy. Jaker is struggling, too, in the last few months.

Akram, the BCB's cricket operations chairman across two terms in the last ten years, is sympathetic.

"I think there's too much pressure on the players," Akram told ESPNcricinfo. "They are not a bad team. These are not bad players. Generally, however, I am not seeing the ability to play big knocks. I don't see the batters planning their innings, or at least breaking them down to phases of 15 balls each. Batting like this was possible in Abu Dhabi where we saw that only one innings got close to the 300-run mark. But we didn't plan well.

"I think the coaches should be held accountable. Losing one in ten matches is okay, but when you lose most games, there will be questions. It is high time we understand the importance of the men's cricket team. Their level of performance reflects the overall health of cricket in the country. I think there's a lot of room for improvement."

Ashraful also feels there should be better decision-making in the selection of the side. Apart from what he said about Litton, he pointed to the selection policy when it came to Soumya Sarkar.

"The ODI team hasn't settled down. There's too much chopping and changing," Ashraful said. "I think many of these decisions are being taken due to pressure from media and social media.

"It will be a tough series against the West Indies. It won't be like the ODI series in the past few years. West Indies are fresh from a Test series in India where two of their batters struck centuries in the second Test. I think that makes them a team with more confidence."

In home conditions, however, "we can always hope to do well," Ashraful said. Which, of course, might only serve to paper over the cracks.