It's now football time (23 May 1999)

23 May 1999

It's now football time

Nizamuddin Ahmed in London

May 22: It is not easy to talk about cricket today, the day of the FA Cup final. The entire nation, the television channels and the media are all struck by the Wembley spectacle.

World Cup cricket, in spite of the hosts meeting tournament hot shots South Africa at the celebrated Oval today, the clash of the Uniteds - Manchester and Newcastle - dominated all but four of the 24 pages of sport in the popular tabloid The Sun. Cricket got two.

Yesterday's Bangladesh-West Indies encounter at Dublin was disposed off with barely three hundred words, including the scorecard. The story is not different elsewhere.

Thankfully, as an apology to the inevitable obscurity, it is a rest day for the Bangladesh cricketers who are lodged in the tranquillity of the Clontarf bay in suburban Dublin in a hotel that is built around a medieval castle.

The players went for nets in the afternoon on the same ground on which they made history by playing with the West Indies the first ODI yesterday.

The team will fly to Edinburgh tomorrow, as will the entourage of BCB officials, who are providing support and encouragement. At Scotland's capital, where they meet the hosts on the coming Monday in their most important match of the World Cup, and perhaps history too, Bangladesh will check-in into Stakis Grosvenor Edinburgh.

It is surprising how low-key the cricket mega-event is being made out to be. Except those who have specifically gone to the stadium with a match ticket, 'the last great sporting event this millennium' is passing by as yet another shopping day at Sainsbury's.

Zimbabwe made the first genuine ripples on Thursday by humbling Azharuddin Company. And India seem well stung. The protest that Azharuddin's team lodged against the decision to curtail their innings to 46 overs could be the next best thing that has happened to kick alive the anaesthetised tournament.

India are also contemplating protesting fielding restrictions of Zimbabwe being lifted after the thirteenth over instead of fifteen.

If the ICC agree to India's protest and grant them the Zimbabwe game or calls for a replay, that bombshell may make as much an impact on this football-crazy nation as a crow does on an elephant's head.

The South Africans are also trying their best to liven up things by making a seemingly unnecessary early announcement that Hansie Cronje will don Bob Woolmer's boots after the World Cup. Perhaps the only bearing of the timing could be to nip speculations in London that yet another Englishman could be in charge of the Proteas.

This latest South African move could further fluster the English, who are already disturbed by a move to steal the 2006 football World Cup from England. The South Africans came to training yesterday wearing T-shirts with the message: I back South Africa for the 2006 World Cup'. The timing is crafty considering that 24 FIFA chiefs are in London to make the decision.

All this really goes to show that even Hansie has football on his mind. And why not? The seventy-nine thousand Wembley crowds will down twenty-four thousand pints of beer, sixty thousand cola drinks and ten thousand hot dogs.

Preliminaries of today's FA cup final began on September 5 with five hundred fifty-eight clubs entering the tournament.

Back in Dublin, preparations are afoot for tomorrow's short flight to Edinburgh. Despite Bangladesh's two defeats, both to superior and experienced opponents, they were not humiliated.

Spirit in Tanveer Muzhar Islam's camp is high, although one or two BCB officials are becoming increasingly frustrated for they had hoped for better performances from the senior members of the team.

A good result on Monday could change all that. Anything less could be disastrous for the future of cricket in Bangladesh. It is always a difficult game when players go out under these 'do or die' situations. But, who said cricket was a ball game?

Source :: The Daily Star