‘We’ve been playing this format since our childhood, so it won’t be a problem.’
When asked about the lack of preparation in terms of playing the 50-over format before going to the Champions Trophy, Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto seemed assured.
But as Bangladesh have been crushed out of the tournament after the first two matches, the question is raised again—do Bangladesh have the ability to be successful in the format that has evolved by a large margin?
Bangladesh played an old-fashioned brand of cricket—just like tournament hosts Pakistan—in their first two matches and ended up losing both of those.
Against India, the top-order batting failed miserably, while against New Zealand, they seemed clueless in the middle overs.
Shanto admitted the fact that his team is in disarray at the moment.
‘We need a collective improvement,’ Shanto said after their defeat against New Zealand on Monday.
‘There are days when the top order is doing well, and another day only the middle order is doing well. There are days when we field well. It is a haphazard situation. I think only a collective performance can help us do well against big teams in these tournaments.’
One of the main concerns is with batting, which often fails to cope up with the modern-day tempo. Where teams regularly score and chase 300-plus totals, the Tigers find it very difficult.
To change that, Shanto asked for better wickets for preparation.
He said, ‘We have room for improvement. We don’t score 300-plus totals regularly. The number of dot balls [in the New Zealand match] was mainly because we lost wickets in a cluster in the middle overs. Maybe, if we had two big partnerships, we wouldn’t have suffered so much today. We have to build the habit of scoring 300 runs regularly. For that, we need better practice wickets.’
Shanto also asked the batters to change their mentality, as he thinks that the players often take it lightly.
‘We have to give chance and try to change that sector depending on the resources available. We have to take responsibility. I think we’re taking it a bit lightly. We’ve to take a bit more responsibility,’ said the Bangladesh captain.
But the problem is Shanto isn’t the first Bangladesh captain who uttered those words after such defeats. But things seldom change back home, and so do the results in tournaments like this.
Dinesh Karthik, the former Indian wicketkeeper, thinks that it’s because Bangladesh need to think long-term instead of getting short-term success.
‘Afghanistan, which started less than a decade ago, has scaled the ladder so quickly; it has done so well for themselves,’ said Karthik in a show on the cricket website Cricbuzz.
‘Bangladesh need to have a strong look at themselves, purely because they only look at the short-term goal.’
‘From a cricketing point of view, if New Zealand come, if South Africa come, they play on rank turners and they only try to win that series; sometimes they don’t end up doing that. But when they go abroad, they struggle,’ Karthik continued.
‘And even in T20s and ODIs, their batters don’t find confidence because they don’t play on good pitches; they just try to win that series, that game instead of looking at the bigger picture like how do I grow this team—that’s been an issue for quite some time now,’ added Karthik.
Another former Indian wicketkeeper, Parthiv Patel, also echoed Karthik’s words. He thinks that Bangladesh need to look ahead instead of depending on the senior cricketers who’ve passed their primes.
‘It never seemed like they had a succession plan for Shakib or Mustafizur or Mushfiqur,’ Patel said on the same show.
‘They never had that. They always thought of short-term plans, as DK said. No long-term plans.’
‘You give some time to Towhid Hridoy, maybe make him vice-captain like India has done with Shubman Gill,’ Patel suggested.
‘They have players, but they just don’t let go. Sometimes in life, it’s important to let go of whatever happens. They do not let go of things and hold the old players, so to speak, and find themselves in the same situation time and time again,’ he added.
