Should BD really be playing Test Cricket...

[Predator_05]

i am shocked. not by our performance, but rather by the fact that a man of your experience and knowledge would forget the struggles of indian cricket when they first started out at test level (which was far less professional than it is today, i might add). 19 years without winning a test. hopefully we'll win one before then. look how india and NZ struggled when they came here. and look at you now. cricket is a game which relies little on athleticism and physique. anyone can succeed given time and luck. you didn't produce world beating players for decades, its irrational to expect us to do it in 8 years. put another way, 14 years ago, BD failed to qualify for the world cup. teams like kenya and UAE made it ahead of us. i'd say we improved quite a bit.

What pathetic analogies. How many test series did India play in their first 19 years ? Just six. As opposed to Banglastan, who played the same # of test series in just their first TWO years. Didn't produce world beating players for decades ? Ever heard of Duleepsinjhi, Vijay Merchant or Hazare ? Obviously not. Go do some reading On the contrary, i'd argue that it wouldn't be unreasonable for cricket enthusiasts to expect Bangalstan to produce at least one decent cricketer in their first decade of test cricket. After all, look at Zimbabwe - when they started out, they already had two in Houghton and Flower. You could count Graeme Hick as well, as he started out there, albeit before they got test status. Tiny country as well. Not irrational at all - you're just making excuses for the noticeable dearth of talent in your country. Population of 150 million, cricket being the number 1 sport along with football, and you can't produce ONE decent cricketer ?

[Gambit]

i am shocked. not by our performance, but rather by the fact that a man of your experience and knowledge would forget the struggles of indian cricket when they first started out at test level (which was far less professional than it is today, i might add). 19 years without winning a test. hopefully we'll win one before then. look how india and NZ struggled when they came here. and look at you now. cricket is a game which relies little on athleticism and physique. anyone can succeed given time and luck. you didn't produce world beating players for decades, its irrational to expect us to do it in 8 years. put another way, 14 years ago, BD failed to qualify for the world cup. teams like kenya and UAE made it ahead of us. i'd say we improved quite a bit.

Utter rubbish. India had played just 25 tests in the 19 years that you mentioned. BD have played 56 in just 8years. And before India notched their first win in their 25th test, they were not getting humiliated, pulverised and embarassed in every test they played until then. Something that you as a Bangladeshi fan are now accustomed to, test after test. India drew 12 out of their first 24 tests against the likes of England, WI and Australia. In comparision, BD have lost 23 out of their first 24 tests. And the one they managed to not lose was because of the weather and not some great cricket. Bangladesh need to be stripped off their test status ASAP. They are a joke.

[Kriterion]

What pathetic analogies. How many test series did India play in their first 19 years ? Just six. As opposed to Banglastan, who played the same # of test series in just their first TWO years. Didn't produce world beating players for decades ? Ever heard of Duleepsinjhi, Vijay Merchant or Hazare ? Obviously not. Go do some reading On the contrary, i'd argue that it wouldn't be unreasonable for cricket enthusiasts to expect Bangalstan to produce at least one decent cricketer in their first decade of test cricket. After all, look at Zimbabwe - when they started out, they already had two in Houghton and Flower. You could count Graeme Hick as well, as he started out there, albeit before they got test status. Tiny country as well. Not irrational at all - you're just making excuses for the noticeable dearth of talent in your country. Population of 150 million, cricket being the number 1 sport along with football, and you can't produce ONE decent cricketer ?

jeez, what hostility! to be expected nonetheless...:hysterical: six series in 19 years leaves plenty of time to learn from mistakes...but given thats how long it took to win, either it wasn't enough time or not much learning was going on. there quite a few decent cricketers around, not as many india or pakistan, but enough and certainly more than new zealand currently. enough to send some top teams packing from the world cup apparently. problem is without temperement, none of that talent matters. for example, our run rate of 4.17 was fine for test cricket...but we only lasted 30 odd overs. thats not a sign of lack of skill, its a sign of lack of temperement. bad habits are hard to break, and to break them it takes time.

[Predator_05]

jeez, what hostility! to be expected nonetheless...:hysterical: six series in 19 years leaves plenty of time to learn from mistakes...but given thats how long it took to win, either it wasn't enough time or not much learning was going on. there quite a few decent cricketers around, not as many india or pakistan, but enough and certainly more than new zealand currently. enough to send some top teams packing from the world cup apparently. problem is without temperement, none of that talent matters. for example, our run rate of 4.17 was fine for test cricket...but we only lasted 30 odd overs. thats not a sign of lack of skill, its a sign of lack of temperement. bad habits are hard to break, and to break them it takes time.

Where is the hostility ? I couldn't care less about Banglastan. I was just calling you out on your BS. The 19 years argument you brought up to justify Banglastani cricket's pitiful state of affairs doesn't hold any water. But if that helps you sleep at night every time your team gets stuffed then feel free to believe it...but at least you know better now. And can you name a few of your decent cricketers ? I'd say the only player in Banglastan's team that is capable of playing for a top Ranji trophy side is Sakib al Hasan. The rest are crap. More decent players than New Zealand ? Behave yourself... ODIs are a different ball game, and even teams like Kenya and Ireland have caused upsets. They, like Banglastan, aren't good enough to compete over 5 days, which is pretty much the point of this thread.

[Tapioca]

I think that home tests would be ok with them. Well, in the sub continent anyway. They recently gave New Zealand a very good shout and this new home approach of ultra defensive batting seemed to work. But obviously, overseas test matches.... well...

Yeah, they should get out of the FTP and pick and choose their Test matches. Playing South Africa in South Africa or Sri Lanka in every other series is not going to do any good. Ideally, they should play almost exclusively at home and more often against teams like West Indies and New Zealand. Whether it will really happen is another question. After South Africa, they are going to play Sri Lanka yet again in December. With Mendis and Murali. That will be taking another two steps back. It may sound silly, but Bangladesh actually did slightly better than South Africa on the second day. South Africa added 142 for 8, while Bangladesh made 173 for 11. But until they are consistent enough to win three or four sessions in a row, they will hardly win anything.

[Kriterion]

And before India notched their first win in their 25th test, they were not getting humiliated, pulverised and embarassed in every test they played until then. Something that you as a Bangladeshi fan are now accustomed to, test after test.

really? are you sure? cuz i heard a guy say otherwise on the BC forums to some arrogantly biggoted indian who sounded just like this... allow me to enlighten you, if you please:

Typical Anti-BD Propoganda Refuted so the argument used is that though India took 20 years or whatever to win their first test, they drew many more matches than Bangladesh. Premise: drawn matches are a show of competitiveness. Reality: not necessarily. a team can play very competitive cricket and lose, and get hammered and still draw. examples are numerous. Bangladesh has so far played tests against Pakistan (multan), Australia (fatullah), South Africa (mirpur), and New Zealand (chittagong) in which they lost, but played quite competitively. the margins of defeat were not unusual as they were by 1 wicket, 3 wickets, 5 wickets, and 3 wickets respectively. in contrast the draw match against the West Indies (st lucia) was a match were West Indies were dominated, yet they did not lose. being able to play worse and not lose is a quirk of test cricket alone. so there are at least 5 matches were did quite well (first innings leads in all). so lets look at the indian record. India played their first 31 Tests from 1932 to 1952. India won 2 of those tests, drew 13, and lost 16. the 2 wins both came in the last year. so India was winless in its first 19 years of test cricket. now, the argument is that india drew 13 tests and was thus competitive. now lets bear in mind that although bangladesh have only 1 real draw in their first 55 or so tests, they've played 5 total competitive matches, with 4 of them being LOSSES. now lets look at those 13 indian drawn tests: these are the aproximate first innings margins of those 13 tests. the first innings margin is a good indicator of whether a match is close or not. -156 runs -369 -124 N/A because opposition declared losing only 3 wickets (i think) +70 -180 -350 -80 -90 +220 +30 +2 -230 average first innings margin = (-) 105 runs aproximately. reality: bangladesh's 4 lost tests above, were FAR closer than these drawn tests. the idea that simply by drawing a test, it means the match was competitive is absolutely not true. now, of these 13 draws, 5 were played overseas and 8 were drawn in the safe confines of home soil. its fair to assume india benefited from home umpiring, a benefit not extended to bangladesh. additionally, india can remove annoying umpires like steve bucknor with a wave of a hand. bangladesh gets umpires like peter parker, bucknor, and ashoka de silva in at least 50% of our tests. for a weak team like us, a bad umpiring decision hurts more than it does to india. further, India's average first innings margin in drawn tests overseas was a whopping (-) 163 runs. even in home tests, the average was (-) 75 runs after the first innings. also bear in mind, the margins would be bigger because often the opposition declared early whereas India was usually all out. India's batting average in those first 20 years was 26, compared with bangladesh's 20.45. the 16 Indian defeats: smallest margins of defeat: 158 runs, 7 wickets, and innings and 16 runs biggest margins of defeat: 233 runs, innings and 226, and 10 wickets average margins of defeat: 198 runs, innings and 144, and 8.85 wickets out of 16 losses, 6 were by an innings and one of those was to the new test nation of pakistan. Bear in mind again, that is the first 20 years of Indian test cricket. India played only 6 close matches out of 31 (4 draws, and 2 wins). the above are very Bangladesh like stats. so in fact, bangladesh have performed just as well (or badly) as india in their first 19 years versus our first 8 years (india's 2 wins came in the 20th year - 1952).

now i trust this guy to have dug up some accurate stats, but feel free to check them out yourself. now just in case you missed it, the first 19 years you won exactly 0 test matches, drew 13, and lost 16. in the drawn 13, your average first innings deficit was over 100 runs, more than 160 overseas. of the 16 losses, the smallest margins were by 158 runs or 7 wickets. 6 of the 16 losses were by an innings, including one to a newbie pakistan. that might not be as embarrassing as BD's performance, but its no less disgraceful.

[Cricketics]

get your history rite @ kriterion we actually got our first test victory in 4 years and not 19 yrz why say 19 years??? from 1932 till 1947, pakistanis and banglastanis were part of India. from 1947, it was a fresh start to our cricket

[Kriterion]

Where is the hostility ? I couldn't care less about Banglastan. I was just calling you out on your BS. The 19 years argument you brought up to justify Banglastani cricket's pitiful state of affairs doesn't hold any water. But if that helps you sleep at night every time your team gets stuffed then feel free to believe it...but at least you know better now. And can you name a few of your decent cricketers ? I'd say the only player in Banglastan's team that is capable of playing for a top Ranji trophy side is Sakib al Hasan. The rest are crap. More decent players than New Zealand ? Behave yourself... ODIs are a different ball game, and even teams like Kenya and Ireland have caused upsets. They, like Banglastan, aren't good enough to compete over 5 days, which is pretty much the point of this thread.

obviously you've cared enough to respond to a poll question on bangalistan cricket...much like me saying i don't care to post on indian forums.

[Guest HariSampath]

It is true that India used to get slaughtered most of the time they played tests in the 30s and 40s. But there is a key difference between India's position and Bangladesh now. India had plenty of classy individual players. Players like Lala Amarnath , Vijay Hazare ( 2 hundreds in same test against Bradmans Aus), Vinoo Mankad, Pankaj Roy, Gupte etc. There were dozens of brillaint batting and bowling performances against some of the top teams in the world then like England and Australia, but we never had a team effort going. Usually India would lose because we would cave in to pace bowlers like Lindwall, Miller or Trueman...as most Indian batters had no clue of fast bowling, and only 1-2 would even stick by in an inngs to get 50. But I dont see anyone from BD now getting brilliant 100s against Aus, India Saf etc in test matches, or getting 5fers. There just arent any International class players now in BD ( except maybe Ashraful) as India had in 30s and 40s. Moreover, india had a great FC system even then . There were the regular Pentangular, provincial tournaments, Hindus vs Muslims and Parsis, the royal houses like Baroda, Holkar etc putting out teams, and there was plenty of cricket of very good standard, I doubt if BD has that now.

[Gambit]

really? are you sure? cuz i heard a guy say otherwise on the BC forums to some arrogantly biggoted indian who sounded just like this... allow me to enlighten you, if you please: now i trust this guy to have dug up some accurate stats, but feel free to check them out yourself.

Interesting but ultimately of ZERO intrinsic worth. So as an analogy you are telling me that you'd rather be a supporter of a football team that loses every game they play than support a team that either draws or loses? :hysterical: The fact is that we didn't get thrashed. The fact is that we drew games. The fact is that Bangladesh is the worst test team in the history of cricket.

now just in case you missed it, the first 19 years you won exactly 0 test matches, drew 13, and lost 16.

LOL@you trying to pass that off as a fact. Does making up such stuff easen the pain of the thrashing you guys receive every test? Buddy, the reality is that India drew 12 out of their first 24 tests, losing 12. And not 16 like you claim. I'll help you out. Click this link(India's first 25 tests) - http://tinyurl.com/59qyw2 Happy reading.

[Guest HariSampath]

@ Kriterion Lets compare individual performances. List to me all the 100s and 5fers by Bangladesh players against top test sides like Aus, India and SAF or SL, in first 25 tests Can you see how Indian cricketers did in the same 25 tests ? We have plenty of exceptional performances from Mankad, Amarnath, Hazare etc. Your comparision is no way justified. Now, if someone were to compare India's first 25 years in cricket and SL's first 25 years, I can understand. Since being granted test status in 1981...SL is perhaps the fastest improved cricket nation to be one of the top test and ODI sides now...winning a world cup just 15 years after becoming a full fledged member country and producing world champion players.

[graphic23]

Ashraful is one of the brightest batsmen there is - a really devastating one if he gets going. In fact, Bangladesh haven't won many matches without him exploding and playing an awesome innings. That said, I don't think BD deserve a test spot because barring a few players (probably like 2 or 3) - no one is technically tight enough or has a good temperament to play 5 day cricket. I think they need to set something up with the BCCI to help their domestic system improve, and probably will generate some good players in the future. It doesn't help a team to keep losing over and over and over again and expect them to improve someday. But I think cricket shouldn't take precedence over some of the internal things that are happening in BD and hopefully with internal affairs improving there, they can set up some kind of deal where their upcoming players can either play in some of our domestic teams or can compete with them on a regular basis. Shakib-Al-Hasan has been terrific lately - contributing with both bat and ball pretty consistently. I think he's a good prospect too.

[Guest HariSampath]

BD is a side that wont even play out full inngs in a six overs match

[Predator_05]

I find it absolutely hilarious that this person is taking FIRST INNINGS LEADS/DEFICITS as the ONLY criteria for defining a 'COMPETITIVE' performance. A team could jsut as easily concede a first innings lead but still fight back strongly in the 2nd innings to draw the match. However, since this doesn't suit the guy's argument, he hasn't bothered to consider it. My definition of competitiveness would be the ability to keep 20 WICKETS INTACT. Everyone knows that the way to win test matches is to take 20 wickets (rare mammoth 4th innings chases notwithstanding). If a team can play out 5 days without conceding 20 wickets, it has been competitive enough to draw the game and thereby thoroughly deserves that result, irrespective of how good or bad it's performance was in relation to the opposition. If the opposition cannot take 20 wickets, it doesn't deserve to win, simple as that. In 12 of it's drawn tests, India conceded 20 wickets just once. Competitive ? I'd say so. 12 draws out of 25 ? Sure beats the hell out of 24 losses out of 25. I also find the umpiring comment (and the reference to Bucknor) to be utterly hilarious. Does that fool seriously believe that India in it's pre-independence era had the same influence and sway in the cricketing world as the BCCI does in this era ? Sorry, but like your pathetic team, you FAIL.

[Kriterion]

Interesting but ultimately of ZERO intrinsic worth. So as an analogy you are telling me that you'd rather be a supporter of a football team that loses every game they play than support a team that either draws or loses? :hysterical:

some people think cucumbers taste better pickled.

The fact is that we didn't get thrashed. The fact is that we drew games. The fact is that Bangladesh is the worst test team in the history of cricket.

average margin @ first innings was negative 105. you don't call that a thrashing? that was in drawn matches. goodness knows what it was in LOST tests. maybe i'll look that one up... btw, 3 of those drawn tests lasted less than 200 overs total. thats equivalent to BD saying they drew their current test of 2 days against SA which is almost 200 overs old.

LOL@you trying to pass that off as a fact. Does making up such stuff easen the pain of the thrashing you guys receive every test? Buddy, the reality is that India drew 12 out of their first 24 tests, losing 12. And not 16 like you claim. I'll help you out. Click this link(India's first 25 tests) - http://tinyurl.com/59qyw2 Happy reading.

fine i'll check cricinfo...sorry, you're right. lost only 12. however, 6 of the first 16 losses were still by an innings (a very BD like ratio, btw) and the average first innings deficits were still whatever is posted above.

[Kriterion]

I find it absolutely hilarious that this person is taking FIRST INNINGS LEADS/DEFICITS as the ONLY criteria for defining a 'COMPETITIVE' performance. A team could jsut as easily concede a first innings lead but still fight back strongly in the 2nd innings to draw the match. However, since this doesn't suit the guy's argument, he hasn't bothered to consider it. My definition of competitiveness would be the ability to keep 20 WICKETS INTACT. Everyone knows that the way to win test matches is to take 20 wickets (rare mammoth 4th innings chases notwithstanding). If a team can play out 5 days without conceding 20 wickets, it has been competitive enough to draw the game and thereby thoroughly deserves that result, irrespective of how good or bad it's performance was in relation to the opposition. If the opposition cannot take 20 wickets, it doesn't deserve to win, simple as that. In 12 of it's drawn tests, India conceded 20 wickets just once. Competitive ? I'd say so. 12 draws out of 25 ? Sure beats the hell out of 24 losses out of 25. I also find the umpiring comment (and the reference to Bucknor) to be utterly hilarious. Does that fool seriously believe that India in it's pre-independence era had the same influence and sway in the cricketing world as the BCCI does in this era ? Sorry, but like your pathetic team, you FAIL.

go back and carefully read the post. he stuidied only the first innings margins of DRAWN tests...all 13 drawn tests, with one thrown out which equals your number of 12 drawn tests. at the time, india hadn't won any, so he didn't do cite that 1st inniings margin, and he didn't bother to check the 12 losses. i can dig that up if you wish, but it will take some time. and touche about the bucknor comments, though BD gets the worst umpires and decisions to make matters worse, regardless of BCCI's pre independence clout.

[Gambit]

average margin @ first innings was negative 105. you don't call that a thrashing? that was in drawn matches. goodness knows what it was in LOST tests. maybe i'll look that one up...

That's an own goal from you. So despite facing a 105 first innings deficit, India managed to draw 12 tests against the likes of England,Australia and West Indies. For Bangladesh, even a 40 run deficit is hard to overcome. :cantstop:

however, 6 of the first 16 losses were still by an innings (a very BD like ratio, btw) and the average first innings deficits were still whatever is posted above.

Listen, you can spin the stats however you like to console yourself but the fact remains that BD are a shoddy shoddy test team whose initial performances are not a patch on India, when they started out. And it's not like you can justify your test berth by pointing out performances in ODIs. We won a world cup within 8 years of ODI debut. What have you guys done? Have you even won a tournament or even reached a final?

[Lord]

That's an own goal from you. So despite facing a 105 first innings deficit, India managed to draw 12 tests against the likes of England,Australia and West Indies. For Bangladesh, even a 40 run deficit is hard to overcome. :cantstop: Listen, you can spin the stats however you like to console yourself but the fact remains that BD are a shoddy shoddy test team whose initial performances are not a patch on India, when they started out. And it's not like you can justify your test berth by pointing out performances in ODIs. We won a world cup within 8 years of ODI debut. What have you guys done? Have you even won a tournament or even reached a final?

or even a semi final

[Shane]

YES, as Dravid put it, we get a vote !!!

[Guest HariSampath]

kriterion...forget about BD team man, just list the number of test match 100s against quality sides, the number of 5fers etc taken by BD players in their first 25 tests...are you avoiding my question...do that and compare it with Indian cricketers in the first 25 tests