Improved Bangladesh seek more ‘acid tests’
HYDERABAD, India: After finally winning respect of the game’s big boys on home turf, Bangladesh now face the challenge of competing with the best away from home when their debut Test in India begins Thursday.
“What they’ve got to do is to start winning outside of their own country,” legendary allrounder Ian Botham told AFP af ter Bangladesh’s first Test win over England in Dhaka in October. “That’s the acid test.”
Since gaining full status in 2000, Bangladesh have won just three out of 44 Tests on foreign soil, two of them in 2009 against a West Indies team depleted by a players’ strike. Their only other win was over Zimbabwe.
Even after the morale boost of their breakthrough victory against England, they lost both Tests on January’s tour of New Zealand.
They declared at 595 for eight in the first Test in Wellington and still contrived to lose by seven wickets after being dismissed for 160 second time round.
That collapse pointed to both a mental fragility and an inability among batsmen more used to playing spin to adapt to seaming pitches.
Former Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar, who is now a selector, told AFP that the biggest problem was a lack of matches.
“Away Tests are difficult for every team, not just for us,” said Bashar, a veteran of Bangladesh’s inaugural Test against India in Dhaka.
“Recently we’ve started playing well... but we don’t play many away matches. If that were to change then the scenario could be different.”
While India’s long- awaited decision to host Bangladesh represents something of a breakthrough, it is still only a one- off match and illustrates the reluctance of teams to find space in their schedules.
Besides bottom-ranked Zimbabwe, the last team to play a three- match series against Bangladesh was Sri Lanka in 2007 while their one and only tour of Australia was in 2003.
There is little doubt that Bangladesh have markedly improved since then, especially in the one- day format where they have won home series against India, South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand and the West Indies in the last five years.
There have also been encouraging signs in Tests with last year’s 1- 1 result against England following draws in rainaffected home series against India and South Africa in 2015. The lack of opportunity to play away from home is beginning to rankle.
“Every other country has given us two Tests but they are just giving us one and that’s only because they couldn’t give us any less,” former skipper Mohammed Ashraful said of India’s one- off invitation.