Shahriar Nafees Ahmed in ODIs, the Man with the REAL Auloukik Kaupal !

[Sohel]

We're all entitled to our opinions and particular angles, and we can always agree to disagree on those.

I tried to be fair by crunching numbers for quite a few players in this thread, and left the pre-Flower/Streak Zimbabwe and the associate sides out of ALL of their summeries, not just Abir's.

Why?

We're not playing second tier cricket yet, and therefore I wanted to make a QUALITAIVE difference here. The depleted Zimbabwe side actually suspended their test status recognizing the deficit. While Zimbabwe and Bangladesh have become increasingly even since then, their bowling is still VERY ordinary. In fact, it is somewhat safe to say we have close to a dozen if not more bowlers in the NCL and out of our national side, who can give the likes of Hondo, Mpofu, Chigumbura (his bowling) and Utseya a good run for their money and easily take their places as bowlers in any team.

Incidentally, Abir's performance against NCL bowlers was pretty ordinary. In fact, with his team Barisal boasting possibly the second best attack in the league with Sajid, Talha, Shubhashish and Suman to name a few, he had a hard time performing against lesser bowlers, some of whom would possibly make it easily into the depleted Zimbabwe side as bowlers. I don't see how his recent performance in the NCL or his last dozen or so matches can possibly justify his selection into the ODI side, when better performers at both levels regularly get comparatively more heat, and on more than one occasion, the axe.

Since I wanted to have a look at some our batsmen against test playing sides with decent bowling, and that in order to assess their quality from a particular standpoint, I left the Zimbabwe sides from 2005 out of the loop.

Not just for Abir, but FOR EVERYONE ELSE AS WELL.

Now, if that makes him "look bad" in comparison to other players who have been axed for apparently less, then the numbers more than validate the assumption underlying this thread: HE IS INDEED FORTUNATE TO STAY ON. The issue here is "fairness".

His performances, or lack there of really, have managed to make him look bad, NOT anything else IMHO.

Not only has he managed to evade the axe, but also valid criticism despite repeated failures since that mis-placed ODI vice-captaincy resulting from the type of minnow-bashing that actually misguided us to his class for the highest level of International cricket. That type of hype probably went to his head with typical results.

Wishful Thinking = Hype = Overconfidence = Complacency = Under-performance. That goes for most of our young cricketers, NOT just Abir BTW. Sadly, they seem to be on the fag-end of the selector's wrath more than he.

Anyway, as posted in the first post of this thread, I remain optimistic about his return at some point in time, and not just as King Rooster ruling the Second Tier Roost.

Peace ...