The Bangladesh Tigers started their tour of South Africa in late September following an encouraging display at home against a strong Aussie side.
Yet the performance of our boys in SA has shocked us all. One bad defeat has followed another and surely a big rebuilding process is required within the team. This tour has to go down as one of our worst performances ever; and keeping in touch with frustrating mood prevailing among the Tigers’ fans.
In this article I would be looking back at three previous occasions, all from the early days of our cricket history, where our national team produced disastrous results.
Bangladesh versus Bermuda: (second ICC trophy): 30th June 1982; King’s Heath, England
Batting first, Bangladesh opened with veteran Raquibul and teenager Nazim Shirazi. The pair batted steadily against the new ball attack of Winston Trott and A. King. Runs were slow to come, but there didn’t seem much alarm.
Certainly there were no hints of the disaster that was about to befall the side. Left armer Trott made the initial breakthrough for the islander; he bowled Raquibul for 8. But it was the introduction of medium pacer Lionel Thomas to the bowling crease, that decided the fate of this match.
He ran thorough our middle order, Gazi Ashraf Lipu and Omar Khaled Rumy were bowled, both failing to open their accounts. Hard hitting middle order bat Rafiqul Alam tried to counter attack but only in vain. He became Thomas’ third victim giving a simple catch to W Reid.
All this time, young Shirazi had patiently built his innings. While he lacked the elegance of Minhajul Nannu or the effortless timings of Nehal Hasnain, he was technically the best Bangladeshi batsman of his time.
Certainly his technique against fast bowling was immaculate, and he showed his best in this difficult situation. But, after seeing one experienced pro follow the other on their way back to the pavilion, he eventually lost his patience; he was out for 26, becoming one of the three victims for King.
Normally in those days, Bangladesh got vital runs from the lower order. Jahangir Shah badshah was an all rounder, skipper Shafiq-ul-Haq Hira was a WK-batsman; and both the medium pacers Dipu and Sami could use the long handle well. But, nothing worked on this day against the three prong Bermuda pace attack.
Skipper Hira fell for a duck, Sami and Dipu contributed three each. Bangladesh were bowled out for 67, from 31.3 overs., with Badshah remaining 4*.
Nazim with 26 was the only Bangladesh batsman to reach double figures, Mr extra contributed 11. The three Bermuda pacers shared ten wickets among themselves, with Thomas taking 4/13.
Bermuda made light work of their chase, reaching 70/3 in the 16th over.
This bad defeat didn’t stop Bangladesh from reaching the Semi Finals, but it badly exposed the inability of our batsman in handling genuine pace; a problem that still exists some 35 years later.
Bangladesh versus Malaysia; third ICC trophy 18th June 1986, Moseley, England
After finishing fourth in the ICC trophy in 1982, Bangladesh went in to the third event four years later with high hopes. Bangladesh had already made their official ODI debut in March of that year by playing in the second Asia cup in SL.
The team, led by Gazi Ashraf Lipu, with Nehal Hasnain as his deputy, had a good mixture of youth and experience. On paper the team looked well balanced, and some encouraging performances in the practice matches raised our hopes. But, the team performed poorly in the actual event; winning just two of their six fixtures and finishing sixth in a seven team group.
In their first match, our boys were thrashed by the favourites Zimbabwe. After some fine swing bowling by left armer Prince restricted the Zim top order, WK batsman Dave Houghton cut loose in the slog overs to score a cracking ton.
Our bowlers redeemed themselves somewhat in their next match against Kenya, restricting the opposition, to 134 all out to ensure a narrow nine run victory, but it was the crushing defeat against Malaysia that convinced us that our team just wasn’t up to the desired standard.
Bangladesh went in to this match as the clear favourites; our opposition mostly included part timers, with either Indian or British origin.
Indeed, everything looked to be in perfect order in the initial stages, as Malaysia struggled to reach 45/4. While Prince was bowling a bit too short for swing friendly conditions; Sami and Badshah, both natural swing bowlers, kept the ball up with excellent results.
Yet, Malaysia overcame this initial setback to reach 239 all out in the 57th over (60 over match).
Asgar Stevens held the middle order together with a patient 68, and all rounder Yazid Imran swung wildly towards the end to score 64*.
Others made useful contributions as Malaysia reached a respectable total. As for the Bangladesh bowling, with no specialist spinner in the team (believe it or not), it was pace bowling all the way.
Veteran Badshah finished with 4/39, but it wasn’t his best bowling effort. Prince was the most disappointing, bowling too short to give away some easy runs.
For some inexplicable reason, medium pacer Tanjib Ahsan Saad, whose economical bowling had played a major part in the victory over Kenya, was dropped from the squad for this match. Bangladesh gave away 41 extras; with the bowlers bowling too many no balls and wides.
Bangladesh started their reply and immediately ran in to trouble. The openers, Raqibul (14) and Atahar (11) perished cheaply, but it was the run out of number three Masum for a duck that hurt us most.
A free flowing right hander, his technique was ideally suited for one day cricket. But sadly, while he scored regularly in domestic cricket, he never showed his best in national colours.
These early setbacks reduced our hopes, but there was some strong resistance from the middle order. Nehal (40), Lipu (41) and Rafiq (51) produced some dazzling batting in the middle overs.
All were capable of scoring a hundred on his day, and a hundred from anyone of them would have been enough. But all perished after looking good.
Little known Desmond John dismissed all three on his way to the match winning figures of 5/40. Imran, playing the match of his life, took 2/37 as Malaysia bowled us out for 182 to create a big upset.
Bangladesh versus Netherlands (4th ICC Trophy):23rd Feb. 1994, Nairobi, Kenya
Bangladesh went in to the event in Kenya rated among the favourites to take one of the three qualifying places, especially with Zimbabwe no longer in the picture following their Test status, our chances seemed really good.
As the cricket season here started in early November, our cricket authority planned a long preparation for the national team. Unfortunately, there were some faults in the preparation programs which hurt us ultimately.
First all the preparation was based in sub continent conditions with home matches plus tours to Pakistan and India. The conditions in Nairobi were quite different. Secondly, almost non-stop cricket from November meant that many of our top cricketers looked jaded prior to the event.
Medium pacer Saiful broke down before the tournament and returned home. Even more damaging was missing Nowsher Prince during the second round group matches. And finally too many experiments were made with the team batting line up and bowling strategies; this meant that even some senior players were not sure about their specific role in the squad.
Still things started pretty well; Bangladesh won three of their four first round fixtures to qualify as group runners up behind eventual winners UAE.
However, couple of things alarmed us. First in the match against USA, our top order looked hapless against the new ball bowlers; and only a brave half century from Akram Khan helped us reach the small target.
Secondly, the defeat against UAE meant that we were in a tough group in second round. While HK was the outsider, both Netherlands and hosts Kenya were genuine contenders for a top three finish.
In fact, with the hosts looking particularly strong at home, our match against the Dutch became a virtual quarter final.
The Tigers won the toss and they elected to field. This seemed a risky move given the depleted situation of our bowling attack.
Yet our bowlers and fielders excelled themselves, restricting the opposition team to 205 all out. Bangladesh surprised their opponents with left arm spinner Sharfuddoula Shaikat (now an umpire) opening the bowling. And Shaikat produced a memorable effort taking 2/27 from ten overs.
He made the initial break through and he had the big one, as he bowled in form Nolan Clarke for 13. The Barbados-born opener, despite being in the mid forties, had emerged as a prolific run getter for the Dutch in the event. In fact he would eventually top the batting chart for the event; both in runs scored and in average.
But, he failed here and his departure saw wickets falling regularly. A number of their batsman got going but then threw it away. Three run outs in the middle of the innings didn’t help their cause. And at the half way point of the match, the Tigers looked the firm favourites.
Yet, the fate of the match was decided in favour of the Dutch within one hour after the lunch break, as our top order yet again looked hapless against quality pace bowling. Out of from opener Atahar perished early, falling LBW to Lefebvre and the middle order soon collapsed.
Akram came at number six but there were no heroics from him here as he was bowled by Jansen for four Jahangir, the young WK cum opener, carried a lone hand top scoring with 48. Towards the end of the innings, all rounder Enamul and Mijanur scored some quick runs just to narrow the deficit. Bangladesh was bowled out for 158 in the 48th over.
Bangladesh was eliminated from the event after a narrow loss against the hosts in the next match. UAE, Kenya and Netherlands qualified for the next WC.
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