It’s been a long, hard road for Bangladesh but let’s enjoy emergenceof a new competitive Test nation
Tim Wigmore is thrilled by the ascent of former Associates nation Bangladesh back to winning ways in Tests
Bangladesh is a nation created in the shadow of war. After a brutal conflict, East Pakistan gained liberation from West Pakistan in December 1971. This new country was the seventh most populous nation in the world, yet was ravaged by the horrors of war, and years of neglect at the hands of West Pakistan.
When Bangladesh was formed, Abdul Kardar, the former Pakistan Test captain and Pakistan’s representative in the International Cricket Conference, the forerunner to the International Cricket Council, proposed that Bangladesh were admitted to Test cricket.
As part of East Pakistan, Bangladesh had regularly hosted Tests, in Dhaka – indeed, Pakistan’s very first Test at home was played there, in front of 80,000 over five days – and had a palpable relish for the game. Kardar’s suggestion was politely rejected. And so, while Bangladesh struggled with terrible economic turmoil in its nascent years as a nation, it was denied an international cricket team, and shunned by most of the cricketing world.
Robin Marlar, a Sussex player turned journalist who would later be MCC president, repeatedly drew attention to their sad plight –“Bengali cricket is numerically strong,” he wrote, declaring Dhaka “a Test match ground fit to rank with any in the world.” Few listened.When the inaugural World Cup took place in 1975, there was no system of qualification, and Bangladesh were not invited.
A lack of enthusiasm for cricket was never Bangladesh’s problem. A debilitating absence of funding, opportunity and infrastructure was. During the early years of the Bangladesh Board, the phone line rarely worked. The humanitarian and socio-economic crisis in Bangladesh was such that the Dhaka Premier League could not take place in 1972; it had to be abandoned halfway through the 1973 season.
But Bangladesh cricket did not merely have to overcome the legacy of a horrific war. It also had to overcome the challenge of years of oppression. Rule by the British was replaced by being part of Pakistan, from 1947, but this merely felt like colonisation of a different sort.
While East Pakistan had a slightly larger population than West Pakistan, the government was based in the West, and prioritised spending there accordingly. A study in 1958 found that two-thirds of government spending was in the West. Inevitably, this imbalance was reflected in cricket.
While Dhaka had a vibrant league, the Pakistan Board focused on the West. Most its money – not that there was much – was invested in facilities there.
Almost all the Pakistan selectors were from the West, and many of the best players in the East were never watched by those who counted. East Pakistan had first-class teams, but, because of a lack of funding, they played too rarely: at one point a first-class team from East Pakistan played only one match in three seasons, according to Osman Samiuddin’s magisterial The Unquiet Ones: A History Of Pakistan Cricket. Only one East Pakistan player was ever selected for Pakistan.
Cricket, then, was not a career for those from East Pakistan in the way it was for those from the West. That remained true long after East Pakistan became Bangladesh.
While Bangladesh earned qualification for the World Cup from 1979, they performed erratically – a credible fourthplaced finish in the qualifiers for the 1983 tournament was followed by an ignominious performance in 1986, losing to Denmark, East Africa and Malaysia. 1986 was a historic year, as Bangladesh were invited to the Asia Cup for the first time, but their first ever ODIs were ignominious affairs. They were bundled out for 94 by Pakistan and made 131-8 from 45 overs in a thrashing by Sri Lanka.
Over the late Eighties and Nineties, the cricket scene in Bangladesh improved. The national side played in the Asia Cup, which was generally held every two years; while this was Bangladesh’s only cricket against Test nations, it was far better than being ignored completely. Bangladesh began playing some matches against A teams, including England, and Indian states. At home, Bangladesh invited some magnificent cricketers – including Wasim Akram and Arjuna Ranatunga – to their domestic competitions, getting huge crowds, sponsorship and publicity for the game as a result.
Meanwhile, the ICC’s broadcasting deals meant that it had much more cash to spend, and the sport finally began taking an interest in expansionism; this was, as Gideon Haigh put it, cricket’s dalliance with League of Nations idealism. The Champions Trophy was set-up, in 1998, explicitly to raise cash for cricket beyond the Test world and, in a further sign of enlightened thinking, the first tournament was in Bangladesh, bringing the world’s best players there for the first time in the nation’s history.
Best of all, Bangladesh’s team was improving. In 1997, Bangladesh won the ICC Trophy, defeating Kenya off the last ball in the final, to secure qualification for their first World Cup. In the 1999 World Cup, Bangladesh did not disappoint: they enjoyed fortune to defeat Scotland in a tense tussle in Edinburgh, and then memorably bested Pakistan in Northampton. For Pakistan, already safely through to the Super Six, the game was irrelevant; for Bangladesh, already out the tournament, it was the best result in history.
And so, a year later, Bangladesh became the 10th Test nation. In a sense this was unjust: Kenya were the superior side: they had won five of the six ODIs between the sides, and would later reach the semi-finals of the 2003 World Cup. Bangladesh’s promotion owed less to cricket than cricket politics: adding them as a Full Member would hand the Asian bloc a crucial extra vote in the ICC board.
Amid all the delirium about inviting a new Test nation, Bangladesh’s preparation for Test cricket was woefully inadequate. Only in 1999 did they launch their multi-day domestic structure, which became first-class the following year. They had still played far too few games against A sides, and had no idea of what five-day cricket entailed.
In their opening Test, against India in November 2000, Bangladesh actually scored 400 in their first innings. But “by day four, we had all forgotten there were another 180 overs to go”, Aminul Islam, who scored 145 in that innings, told Cricket Monthly recently.“We played Tests like three-day matches.” Bangladesh folded for 91 in their second innings. For the next
Amid all the delirium about inviting in a new Test nation, Bangladesh’s preparation for Test cricket was woefully inadequate
decade, they were seldom much better.
Bangladesh were not only the team who could not win. They were the team who could not draw, or even lose with honour. New Zealand had gone 26 years before winning their first Test, but had drawn half of their first 44 games. Bangladesh just lost again, and again. Between October 1999 and March 2004, Bangladesh played 72 completed internationals. They won none, drew one (a Test against Zimbabwe), and lost the other 71.
It was one of the worst runs in the entire history of international sport.
Occasionally there were glimmers of Bangladesh’s potential. In 2005, they finally won a Test, against Zimbabwe, although their opponents were ravaged by the political crisis in the country. More significantly, Bangladesh beat Australia at Cardiff in 2005, and then beat India and South Africa at 2007 World Cup.Yet the fate of Mohammad Ashraful, man of the match in those wins against Australia and South Africa, encapsulated Bangladesh.
Possessor of one of the most adroit wrists in the game, Ashraful scored a wondrous Test century against Muttiah Muralitharan two months after turning 17 and hit five Test hundreds against Sri Lanka.Yet he remained infuriatingly inconsistent – more national embarrassment than national emblem – and was later banned for corruption, a sad but apt metaphor for an unfulfilled cricket nation.
Wider obstacles remained, and have not gone away. In 2007 the rebel Indian Cricket League decimated Bangladesh’s squad, picking off the side’s best talent by offering more cash than the Bangladesh Board could; even now, without higher salaries, Bangladesh players could be vulnerable to retiring prematurely because of the lure of T20 leagues.
Bangladesh have also suffered from a paucity of fixtures: they have only played 95 Tests in 16 years as a Test nation, a paltry six a year. This does not reflect well on the other Test nations, yet Bangladesh did not help themselves, either. Stuart Law, a former coach, urged Bangladesh to schedule as many matches against associates as possible during gaps in their schedule: the side needed to play as much as possible, and playing lowerranked sides would also give Bangladesh experience of winning, and dealing with expectation.
Yet Bangladesh have been “scared” to play associates, as a senior figure at the ICC once told me. During those five years without an international win, from 1999 to 2004, Bangladesh played only two ODIs against associates, losing to both Canada and Kenya during the 2003 Word Cup. In preparation for the Tests against England, their first for 14 months, Bangladesh ought to have sought out Afghanistan and Ireland for first-class matches in preparation.
Yet, for all these challenges, Bangladesh are no longer a team defined by potential and underperformance, but by their results. Bangladesh defeated India, Pakistan and South Africa in ODI series last year, and knocked England out of the World Cup, too. In home conditions, where they have Shakib Al-Hassan, Bangladesh’s first titan, alongside a plethora of other fine spinners – Mehedi Hasan, 19, could be outstanding for a generation – and batsmen well-versed in Sub-continental conditions, Bangladesh’s first major Test triumph was overdue.
So while the manner of England’s defeat was dispiriting, the mere fact of it was not. Bangladesh’s heist against a major opponent was inevitable. The surprise was that it took so long.
Bangladesh lost to Pakistan by one wicket in 2003, and to Australia by three wickets in 2006, when a dropped catch off Ricky Ponting denied them a triumph for the ages. Last year, they beat South Africa in the ODI series and earned a 78-run first innings lead until the monsoon intervened. Given Australia’s lamentable record in Asia – nine consecutive Test defeats – and the absence of David Warner, they might well have been beaten in a Test last October, had they not pulled out for security reasons.
It has taken long, too long. But with 160 million people – fewer only than India and Pakistan among major cricket nations – a zest for cricket and an improving infrastructure, on the cricket pitch and beyond, Bangladesh are shaping up as world cricket’s next major player.
If the team retains obvious flaws – especially their batting against fast bowling and their limited stockpile of quicks – the overwhelming sense is of excitement at what, given opportunities and the security situation holding up in Bangladesh, the team could achieve in the next decade.
When Mustafizur Rahman, arguably the most thrilling and individualistic pace talent to emerge anywhere since Lasith Malinga, and Taskin Ahmed return from injury, Bangladesh will have an attack better-suited to thriving in New Zealand, their next Test assignment.
The road ahead will be a turbulent one. Yet Dhaka 2016, like Pakistan’s seminal victory at The Oval in 1954, marks the birth of a new competitive Test nation, a progression from a side able to compete occasionally to one able to win in Test cricket.
Welcome to the club, Bangladesh.