The frail tail of Bangladesh

Exactly seven days are left before Bangladesh is taking on the mighty Pakistan in their home ground for the inaugural match of Asian Test Championship. The ground of Multan is unfamiliar to both sides even Inzamam-Ul-Haq knows little or nothing about it. It is worth mentioning that he was born here and Waqar's hometown is not far away. A team like Pakistan does not go for spinners when they have a bundle of match winning fast bowlers in their camp. So let's think they are coming with their quickies in the Multan field.

Bangladesh's performance against the quick bowlers is a suspect and it is evident in all three Tests they have played so far. Fast bowlers from India and Zimbabwe caused the havoc on every occasion and they had claimed 39 out of 60 Bangladeshi wickets. Pakistan certainly has a stronger pace attack than that of the other two rivals Bangladesh played against. Here, the question arises how far the Bangla Tigers will go against the hostility of the Paki quickies with a frail tail?

The specialist batsmen of the country were seen struggling against the rising deliveries of the Indian and Zimbabwean pacers. Think about the second innings of the Test against India when the side collapsed to 91 only. Most of them succumbed to the short pitch deliveries and were found quite nervous in facing such balls.

Against Zimbabwe it turned out to be a more daunting task, as they had to deal with the pacers in alien tracks and the front line batsmen missed the assistance they should get from the tail enders. On an average the last five wickets put 50 to 60 runs on the board, which brought a hasty finish in the innings. Otherwise, it could not be stiff to take three of their innings off to 300 landmarks or more (257, 168, 254 and 266 are the four test innings they played in Zimbabwe and the last five wickets put 63, 39, 83 and 63 respectively).

The tail-enders of Bangladesh team can bat at least their averages make it clear. Mushfiqur Rahman, who batted at number eight, is an excellent batsman but failed miserably. Hasibul Hussain hits the ball hard and he made 28 against India. Mohammed Sharif proved in the ODI that he could be helpful at the end. Enamul Hoque's ability to bat is indisputable (His average is 36.38 in the First Class matches). The sole exception is Manjurul who bats at number eleven and much should not be expected from him.

Instead of staying on the wicket and batting sensibly, these players were seen carried away with their wild shots that cost their wickets eventually and brought the doom for their side.

In Multan, we hope Bangladesh would show some signs of improvements here.