THROUGH THE COVERS: It’s a matter of hope, not belief
By Zaheer Abbas
BANGLADESH’S recent 0-2 loss in a two-Test series against England has once again highlighted the former’s lack of ability and guts to perform at par with other international side. A lot has been written about the team’s ‘creditable’ performances against Australia and Pakistan, and there were people who said the side, playing on home soil, was bound to do well against England. But it didn’t, and that, in turn, didn’t surprise me a bit.
After the series against Australia, I had remarked that while people were busy praising Bangladesh’s performance to the skies, they were missing the point that in practical terms they were basically praising Bangladesh’s ability to take the game into the fourth day of a five-day Test!
As far as the series against Pakistan is concerned, it was more a case of Pakistan playing badly rather than Bangladesh playing well (the reasons are too well known for me to repeat what I have been saying all along). But, even then, all Bangladesh could do during the series was to avoid embarrassing defeats. They just could not make an impact on the scoreline, and the case has not been any different against England.
While Dev Whatmore has certainly had a positive influence on the boys since he joined them before the series against Australia, a result in favour of the Bangladeshis is still a mater of hope than belief.
For the last several weeks — months, in fact — things happening on the national scene, both on and off the field, kept me so busy that the international scene had to be relegated to the back seat. Even when Mathew Hayden of Australia broke that world record, I could not do justice to the man and his feat, and I do feel bad about it. Though a bit late in the day, it is better late than never, I guess, to marvel at the innings that it was.
I do not intend to discuss the specific innings — basically because, public memory being short, it would by now be out of the mind of most readers — but I do wish to touch briefly on some of the comments that I read in the papers and heard in private conversations to the effect that the record was not worth it, as it had been set against a minor side.
Sorry, but I don’t subscribe to that view. Scoring that many runs — 380 was his tally — even against a club side is a feat worth applauding, let alone trying to undermine the achievement on the international stage. Scoring centuries and scoring a pile of runs are two different things.
There have been many big names in world cricket who accumulated good career averages, but hardly scored a double century, what to talk of a world record. It is because while they had the talent to score runs, they did not have the ability to convert a ‘mere’ century into something big and special. To be able to do that, one needs to have the unsated appetite for runs, the temperament to stay on the wicket, the concentration to keep the focus and not to fall to some odd bowling change, the mental toughness to face all the good and the bad that happens during a long innings, and, of course, the physical fitness to last that long.
The list of prerequisites remain the same regardless of the kind of opposition. Just for the sake of an argument, even if it does get slightly less demanding, a batsman can only try to be his best regardless of the opposition he is facing. You can’t pick your opponents, but you can try to pick your spot under the sun, right?
BANGLADESH’S recent 0-2 loss in a two-Test series against England has once again highlighted the former’s lack of ability and guts to perform at par with other international side. A lot has been written about the team’s ‘creditable’ performances against Australia and Pakistan, and there were people who said the side, playing on home soil, was bound to do well against England. But it didn’t, and that, in turn, didn’t surprise me a bit.
