Time out for Bangladesh cricket (20 Sep 1998)

20 September 1998

Time out for Bangladesh cricket

Shakil Kasem

"If we could only look instead of gawking, we will see horror in the heart of farce." No, Lautrec is being too harsh. Let's try Henry Kissinger, who said, "When reality clashes with our expectations of it, frustration is the only natural outcome.

"Indeed, the harsh realities of the big bad world of international cricket, have hit us fairly and squarely in our cricketing solar plexus. Frustration, is an understatement, disgust the order of the day.

We are now in all earnestness, poised on the moment of truth. It is time now to take a collective deep breath and ask ourselves, do we belong here? It is time also to look at ourselves, cricketwise, for the inside is looking increasingly insidious and the outside distinctly grotesque. However, in keeping with our well earned national reputation of missing the most obvious of reasons attributable to any catastrophe, we are pointing a myriad of fingers at every conceivable and imaginary gremlin. This is of course due to one of our other well-known virtues, we do not know where the buck starts from and where it stops.

But, the time has indeed come to face facts. Does Bangladesh have it in itself to survive at the top level? Are we misleading ourselves, the cricketers and the nation? Should someone be held accountable? If so, who should they be? The all too familiar and regular debacles of our cricket team should be diagnosed as manifestation of a debilitating malaise that is eating at the vitals of our cricket. Let us not miss the point that this includes the non-performance of management and players alike.

Every since the ICC Trophy in Malaysia, the performances of the national team have been showing all the telltale signs of a meltdown. The writing was on the wall for all to see, except that we chose to look the other way. Confucius had put it aptly, in a different context, "When the finger points at the moon, the idiot looks at the finger." We chose to ignore the signs, and now we are having to pay for it.

Over the last 18 months, the cricketers have been sent to all corners of the cricketing globe. Exactly what was sought to have been achieved from these trips has remained a mystery. No reports on the tours in question have been made publicly available. Or worse yet, acted upon. What was made obvious, was yet another disastrous tour following on the heels of the previous one. Ad nauseam, ad infinitum. What the opponents in those countries faced, was essentially a team from Bangladesh that was basically tired and fatigued from over exertion, stale from too much cricket and certainly lacking in confidence because of the failures of the immediate past. One should not expect any degree of commitment from players who are therefore not mentally or physically strong by any stretch of imagination. Add to this, the rather inescapable fact that Bangladesh does not have players of international class, capable of rising to the occasion with bat and ball, in adverse conditions.

The team has still not come to terms with its strengths, if any. It is averaging below three runs an over when batting and is regularly seen to give away more than double those runs when bowling. This ratio is really not good enough to do business in the international market. Whether we like it or not, our cricketers are woefully short of the class required to make an impact on the international circuit that they have gatecrashed into. At least, certainly not at the moment. Motivations must of necessity always stem from self assessments. Are we pushing for too much, too soon? I think so.

The powers that be of Bangladesh cricket, should now step back a few steps and look at the overall canvas of the country's cricket and decide where to go from here. Or, more pertinently whether or not we need to be in such a rush to get nowhere. Our cricket is ailing. Without the right treatment it might end up being crippled and handicapped. The writing is again up in neon lights and the authorities and players would do well to take their blinkers off and read it carefully this time. It is time now to get back to the drawing boards for there is really no other choice. We had failed to seize the moment. Sad, really.

Source :: The Bangladesh Daily Star (https://www.dailystarnews.com)