November 3, 2016 Bangladesh's extraordinary 16 years in Test cricket

[MHRAM]

There is no actual term for the way you felt when watching Bangladesh over the last ten years. It's a combination of hope and pain. The hope they will do wells up but is usually brought down by the pain when they inevitably don't. It might be from one game or one series. Maybe they had a good session or day, or you saw a young cricketer who you think has a bright future. The hope rises, but the next game, the next day, the next series brings you back down, and that player you invested in, much like Bangladesh, loses the quality that excited you and fades away.

Even in their best players, there has been disappointment. Tamim Iqbal paints Lord's with his glory, and yet spends most of his time in mediocrity. Shakib Al-Hasan is one of the best allrounders in the world, but it's doubtful we've ever seen him consistently at his best. Mashrafe Mortaza's dodgy knees have kept away a quality player and sensible head. And then there is the horror story of Mohammad Ashraful, their first prodigal son, their first cautionary tale.

Their loss in the World T20 against India was perhaps their most Bangladesh moment. They had come into the tournament after being a World Cup quarter-finalist, they had played quality limited-overs cricket, discovered the marvels of Mustafizur Rahman, and were expected to cause an upset and perhaps sneak into the semi-finals. For most of the match against India they were not playing like some afterthought of modern cricket, but like the team their country so desperately wants them to be. And not against any team, but against the favourites of the tournament, in their own backyard. They were virtually over the line, so much so that it inspired a premature celebration from Mushfiqur Rahim, that looked silly at the time, but was far sillier then whey managed to lose the game.

It was yet another moment when Bangladesh tried to show they were Tigers and proved they were Toygers. Not for the first time, the cricket world lost patience with them: when will this team grow up?

Bangladesh are one of the luckiest cricket nations in history. You could argue that they were involved in Test matches over 50 years ago, as East Pakistan, and they should have been pushed, helped and funded back then, but that isn't what cricket does. But once they started playing cricket at a top Associate level, they needed to win only one game to get Test status. Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe had similar luck, but in the modern era the other teams have not fared as well.

Kenya beat West Indies in the '96 World Cup, then in the 2003 World Cup they beat Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and thanks to a walkover from New Zealand, made the semi-finals. They never received a Test call. And if Kenyan fans feel slighted, what of Irish fans - they have had three successful World Cup campaigns and are still not a Test team.

Those from the major nations feel Bangladesh haven't significantly improved, and those from the smaller countries think Bangladesh have misused their golden ticket.

From a modern standpoint you can see how there might be grounds for those arguments. Bangladesh's senior players were dropped to push youth, and instead of fielding a quality team of youngsters, they became an immature team of spoilt brats. The next generation never really came on at all. They struggled to fill an XI with international-quality players. Their fans have become known as boisterous at best and vicious at worst. And their chairman, the ICC president at the time, all but suggested that the World Cup quarter-final was rigged against his team.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine...y/1064464.html

Amazing article. While we are so pessimistic about our progress, this article here highlights the fact that we have actually made good stride given our conditions.

Its easy for the entire world to point fingers at us.