It’s not always that India comes to tour Bangladesh, but when they do they hardly have an easy time here.
With a match still to spare Bangladesh has sealed the series against the Men in Blue, much like they had in the series back in twenty fifteen. Mehidy Hasan Miraz has performed well beyond expectations to bring home the win not once but twice! A thirty-nine ball thirty-eight with a wicket for forty-three runs in ten overs in the first match, which he followed with an eighty-three ball unbeaten century and two wickets for forty-six runs in six overs and a ball. Truly a breakthrough series for the man who has been seen as a bright prospect for Bangladesh. But this was not the first time that he had done so this year.
Bangladesh has had a fruitful run in ODI cricket, both at home and away. In the series in West Indies, the team brought home the victory with a three to zero clean sweep. Miraz won the man of the match in the first match with a nice three wickets for thirty-six runs while in the second match he picked up four wickets for twenty-nine runs, just one short of a fifer!
In the South African series which we won two to one, Miraz picked up four wickets for sixty-one runs in the first match, one wicket for fifty-six in the second match and then one wicket for twenty-seven in the third match. The only blip for Bangladesh was in the Zimbabwe series which we lost two to one. But even there Miraz had done well. That’s two overseas wins and one overseas loss in terms of series matches, not a bad outcome.
But that does not mean the team had not done well at home. At this point, Bangladesh has won thirteen of the last fifteen ODI series they played at home, not something to scoff at. This surge in performance has prompted Bangladesh Captain Tamim Iqbal to boast that Bangladesh will be playing to win the twenty twenty-three ODI World Cup. But is Bangladesh truly ready for that just yet?
In all the series that we have seen Bangladesh perform, the entire team never clicked at the same time. But the most glaring thing observed is the lack of support the top order gives. Without Tamim Iqbal, we do not have a stable opening pair. We have tried Anamul in this India series who has done well in the previous one, but that is at number three. As an opener, he has not done well in this series. Liton Das has also not done as well as we expect of him, going out for a forty-six in the first match and then in the single digits in the second one, and the less said about Shanto the better.
If we compare things with the series wins this year, we would see that it is not that bad, that the top order has only not performed in this series and has been hot and cold in the previous one. But let us not forget that the T20 World Cup came in between these matches and the opening pair had not been remotely close to satisfactory in the tournament, even if this year’s tournament had been the best one for us in our T20 World Cup history. But do not let that cloud your judgment.
What does it take to be a complete package of a cricket team? Let us think about Australia during the tenure of Ricky Ponting as Captain. They had openers in Adam Gilchrist and Mathew Hayden, and middle order batsmen in Ricky Ponting, Damien Martyn, Darren Lehmann and Michael Bevan. They had strong all-rounders in Andrew Symonds and Ian Harvey, and spinners in Brad Hogg and Shane Warne. And then pacers like Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Andy Bichel, and Jason Gillespie. Now make a playing eleven from this squad and you can feel the thrill of the game and the fear of facing them. A complete ODI team that ruled ODIs for many years.
Compared to that we don’t have much. Our Openers Tamim Iqbal and Liton Das are capable and dependable, but inconsistent. Our middle order is the same. Our all-rounders, spinners and pacers are top notches I will say, ones that anyone who plays against us will be wary of. But without a consistent and stable top and middle order, we are not going to go far. Even in the recent Afghanistan Series and India Series, we won matches where our lower order had to save us from a shameful situation. Afif and Miraz did it against Afghanistan while Miraz and Mustiafiz, and Miraz and Mahmudullah did it against India. We can’t always expect them to step up for us. We need our top order and our middle order to click, to give the lower order something to work on, to build and create a mammoth target to topple our opposition.
Bangladesh team has become a side to be reckoned with, a team that is on the verge of greatness. One push and they’d be at the top. But for that to happen they need to get their acts together. And looking into this top-order mayhem is as good a start as any.