New Zealand in Bangladesh

No body has spoken about this but the fact is that Bangladesh have beaten New Zealand in the first ODI today to go 1-0 up in the 5 match series.

NZL clearly struggling to handle bangladeshi's spin... Shakib the hero once again with a half century and a 4 wicket haul! What makes it more significant is that they have won this without Tamim Iqbal, their key batsman!

A quick half century from McCullum but it was not enough... great to see Jesse Ryder back he remains one of my favorite players. NZL though will have to do plenty of work otherwise they'll have a very very difficult time in India.

BAN on the other hand are clearly showing us that they are fast catching up with the rest of the pack.


Edited by sam_ahmed - 05 October 2010 at 6:59pm

A win is a win, but Bangladesh need some consistency if they are really going to compete with the major cricketing nations.

you guys are not realizing it, Bangladesh will be a real threat to some of the top teams in the World Cup, just wait and watch.

Yes. They are not doing any good to the tournaments by an occasional upset. It is better for to have two tiers for test matches with SA,Aus,WI,Eng,Ind,Sri,Pak,Nz playing among themselves and Ban, Ire, Zim, Ken etc in the second tier. Also have only these 8 top teams for the worldcup with round robin format.
The current mini world cup or whatever it is could include 4 of the second tier teams. Only if they win or qualify for the finals of the mini world cup, we can think of replacing the last ranked team in the main tier with the first ranked in the second tier.

I think why we won't be seeing any exclusion of minnows from the World Cup is because the ICC is very keen on developing Cricket to an extent.  I don't mind seeing some minnows but having 16 teams in a World cup where at least 6 of them are minnows (10 when WI, Pak, Bang and Zim plays sometimes) is just too much.

I agree with your last post Milky, but I do not agree that the talent in bangladesh is limited to Tamim and Shakib. Youngsters like Junaid Siddique, Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim have impressed and even players like Naeem Islam, Imrul Kayes, Raqibul are not bad. then you have Ashraful who canh do a lot of good things but doesn't!!!

pace bowling is weak, I agree but their spin department can claim to be among the best in the world. Shakib, Naeem, Mahmudullan, Razzak... no team can boast of 4 very fine spinners playing in the same eleven... and three of them are all rounders.

Finally, The interest in Bangladesh is immense, you can never find the same level of intensity in any game played in Ireland or the Netherlands, and when you have so many people following the game you've got to believe that Bangladesh is not a wasted investment, youngsters will continue to follow the game and Bangladesh will continue to develop as a cricketing nation.

Spinny is right, strong pace bowlers will win you tests. India doesn't have the best pacers, but there's 1 or 2 there who are very good and that's why they have done better this decade compared to others where the only other pacers of notability have been Kapil Dav and Srinath. When you have 5 batsmen averaging 50 then of course they can get away with pitfalls in other areas. Bangladesh has 5 batsmen averaging 25, which means they can't get away with anything.
You have to be realistic. As good as Mahmudullah or Mushfiqr are, they aren't even close to the players from other sides who have similar roles (i.e. Mahmudullah is no where near as good as Swann and Mushfiqr isn't even close to Prior).
Bangladesh would struggle playing the associate teams, I don't doubt that. I reckon the way Afghanistan has been playing they could probably smash Bangladesh and so would Ireland.

The tradition in the last 2 decades has been: India has powerful batting, Pakistan powerful bowling, South Africa powerful fielding and Australia the most balanced. That's why these teams have done well. Bangledesh really can't boast having any strength. Even when Zimbabwe first started out, they were not that talented, but they were known very well for being the most athletic and fit side, with a great fielding unit. That was something they could control and that helped them a lot, especially in ODI cricket at least. Bangladesh are so unprofessional. Zimbabwe have been in turmoil, but look at them now. A new, working franchise domestic system, bringing back all their best players in specialised roles (e.g. Campbell as selector, Flower as batting coach/player, Streak as a coach, etc), then bringing in overseas help like Jason Gillespie. Having class international players play in the T20 competition, like Ian Harvey. I mean the list goes on. They look a real team with a real goal. You don't get that kind of organisation from South Asian teams I'm afraid.

My little club up in Brisbane when I used to live up there had a bowling machine! That club catered for about 100 players only!! Jeez.
Max, if you look at the numbers over there, the best batsmen barely average 35 and there are very few  100s scored. So even these so called 'flat' wickets aren't producing big runs.
Bangladesh is a very poor nation with extremely bad infrastructure. I really don't understand why so much has been invested in them. They will never be a competitive side in test cricket, mark my words.
You have to play sports within your boundaries and limits. Cricket, by all means, is a very expensive sport to play properly. The time needed to play a match is too much for amateurs in many respects.
They really need to stick to their strengths. A good example I can give you is Egypt. The people there are football mad and as a result they get big sponsorship for the game , despite the fact that making sport as a career in a developing nation is usually hard. Egypt has a very competitive domestic football league, with their best team Al-Ahly being one of the best in Africa. The national squad is almost solely picked from local leagues and Egypt has been the African champion more times than any other team and is now ranked no,. 9 in the FIFA rankings, that's right... top 10.
Egypt is basically a 3rd world country, but look at this achievement. Why? Because they are playing a sport which can feasibly fit into the time, culture and infrastructure and there is great passion from the people.
This is not evident in Bangladesh with regard to cricket. Not at all.

very valid points by milky, max and spinny, but then even Pak is not a very rich country, not long ago we (Ind) were not that rich, neither are the West Indians and Zimbabweans. I think the most important factors are passion for the game and talent and I can see that in Bangladesh. However as rightly pointed out by you all lack of infrastructure and money will mean their progress will not be as fast as it should be, but, I think, it due course of time they will be there with the top teams.

Afghanistan is an interesting case, their rise has been very rapid which is a surprise given the conditions in the troubled country. However,I really can't see them doing as well other associate teams.

2-0 to the Bangla boys.....that's about all I have to say really. A few months break really is no excuse. 

Originally posted by milkman They've won the first one, if they can win the series THEN that's a step forward. Otherwise they're just wasting everyone's time.

Well that's 2-0 with 1 washed out and 2 left to play, which means they can't lose the series.

Definitely a step in the right direction in anyone's books!

Economy rate wise Vettori will do better yes, other than that, it will be the same old story of spinners against India.

And congrats to Bangladesh, their spin attack is wrecking teams.  Good to see Nafees back in the runs, I use to think he was a well capable batsman before his time out of the team.  Good that he's back.  Don't know if they'll stick with him with Tamim comes back, seeing kayes isn't doing to bad and Siddique usually does well at number 3 now.

Vettori is a world class bowler, he is extremely good in ODI's and even in tests I do rate him very highly. Problem for NZL will be the lack of good pace bowlers though, They have Daryll Tuffey and perhaps Chris Martin but I doubt if they'll be able to do well in India, I don't know who the other pacers will be, perhaps Ian Butler ... They will miss Bond very badly. However, in Taylor, McCullum and Ryder they have three very fine players and then Vettori has been in tremendous form of late, so NZL will be banking on them and hoping for draws.

Edited by sam_ahmed - 12 October 2010 at 6:14pm

Well there's 2 games left and NZ can safe face by winning them both and I can  see them doing that. This is Bangladesh's best shot at winning a series against a major team that's basically at full strength. Both teams will want to win, and that sort of drive and passion can bring about good results.