The Case Against Mushy. My explanation to those genuinely interested.

[Roey Haque]

I would like to thank members like Godzilla and rest, who were always genuinely interested in why I hate Mushfiqur's guts so much. Now while I have explained it many times in my time here in numerous posts, it occurred to me that I could bring it all together in one article. No harm in doing so. So here it is, meant for those of you who are genuinely interested. For Mushy lackeys who never engage with any of my other non-Mushfiqur posts, and only raise their voice when I write a Mushy post, you are not for discussion, you are for anti-free speech and player worship. And you can bet your bottom dollar I will point it out again and again when your hero makes a mistake.

Peace out. Merry Christmas and very happy new year!
Roey

The Case Against Mushy

Mushfiqur Rahim is a fiery character in Bangladesh cricket. He has had many good knocks in the past, such as the mammoth 144 vs Sri Lanka in the recently concluded Asia Cup, which is second only to Tamim’s 154 as the highest ever ODI score by a Bangladeshi batsman. His ODI batting average since the last world cup in 2015 is a stupendous 47, which pales in comparison to the likes of Kohli and co, but it is still considered a very respectable average in any era of the gentleman’s game. But on the topic of batting performances, it was not always so sunny for Rahim, or Mushy, as his fans like to call him. After being introduced to the ODI side in 2006, his batting average in his first 40 games was a measly 19. He was persisted with only because he played for a developing cricket side like Bangladesh. To be fair to the selectors, his average kept going up by 1 run for every year calendar since then. It took all but 10 years for his ODI batting average to cross 30 runs, which is bare minimum for a good batsman in the international circuit.

Since the world cup however, his form has been sublime for the most part with only a sour patch in the middle where he could not get runs. But even after such strong showing in recent times, his average is still a paltry 33 which is reflective of his early growing years and the mind numbingly slow climb to his position in the team now, again coming at the courtesy of a developing side like Bangladesh. However presently, he is pretty much indispensable not only performance wise, but also because of the reassurance that he brings to the middle order every time he comes on to bat. Indeed, you do not see too many batsmen in the Bangladeshi side on a given day who can rotate the strike as effortlessly as one Mushfiqur Rahim can. But apart from the early sacrifices of persisting with basket cases like Rahim when Bangladesh was still a minnow, what else have they sacrificed because of his presence? The objective minded fan must answer that million-dollar question. At present, the painful investment has paid off in batting terms. True, he would not make it in any other top 8 side back then, and he would certainly not make it to the present Bangladesh side due to the rise of expectations that comes with shaking off the minnow tag. It is like getting a terrible deal on a mortgage, where you feel cheated every month, and only after paying it off after 10 years do you feel good as you have a wonderful house to show for. Therefore, Bangladesh now have a Rahim who is a solid bat and someone who should definitely be part of the XI whenever he is fit to play. But batting aside, how else has Rahim contributed to Bangladesh cricket in his 12 year career thus far?

Let us cover the positives first. Rahim is ambitious, which is fantastic. It takes a certain degree of ambition to believe in yourself after such a shaky start to your career. It was not his fault that he kept getting picked. He at least had the heart to keep trying to better himself where his average would slowly ascend at sloth like pace. Rahim also has good work ethic according to journalists, though the work ethic of journalists themselves can be questioned, as they sometimes write pre-pitched stories without any validation. But I think it can be surmised logically that a person who has self-belief like Rahim would not take his work regimen lightly. I am sure he has worked extremely hard to get to where he is today, which should be enough testament to his work ethic. It pains me to say however that this is where I will have to stop singing his praises as his rap sheet is a long one.

Mushfiqur is narcissistic. He likes to be in the center of attention at all times. He constantly chirps from behind the wickets as if he has the necessary acumen of a bowler himself. He says the most basic things such as “to bowl in the right areas”. If bowlers do not implicitly know that they have to bowl in the right area, I question their place in the national squad to begin with. But Rahim does it because he loves attention. He will also make disparaging remarks to stay at the center of attention. He will scold players left and right from behind the stumps. For not hitting the right lengths, for misfields, bad throws etc. One may argue, that you need such an enforcer in the team. Here is the problem. In order to be such a figure, you first need to be very skilled at what you do! Or you are just throwing stones from a glasshouse. So it comes as a huge shock to anyone who has been following Bangladesh cricket over the last decade or more that Rahim has been a terrible wicket keeper. He has gotten better in recent years. His stumpings are especially noteworthy. But he continues to drop catches, which has plagued him all throughout his career as a wicketkeeper. In addition, because he is very short, some potential regulation catches are simply not possible for him to reach. In such a case, the best thing to do would be to give up the gloves at the earliest opportunity, especially when you have developed yourself into a reputable bat. But Rahim has not expressed any desire to do that, which brings us to his second major flaw which hurts the team, i.e., his insecurity. He has said many times before, that he “enjoys keeping”. We enjoy a lot of things, but for the sake of the betterment of the team we have to sacrifice things. But Rahim is not interested. Because he has taken so long to bloom into a proper batsman, he still feels insecure about his place in the team. Thus retaining glove duties gives him extra leverage in his eyes, even though it hurts the team immensely, firstly because of his ineptitude with the gloves, and secondly because his chirping habits which are not backed up proficiency and hence does not draw respect from his teammates. If anything, it demoralizes them as they look at him as this petty man with a Napoleon complex.

Aside from being a poor communicator and a historically bad wicketkeeper (historical because no other team in history has continued to stay with a wicket keeper who drops as many chances as Rahim, for e.g.: you don’t see Kamran Akmal play for Pakistan any longer, though I am sure he would like to), Rahim is pretty immature, for the lack of a better word. Too many times, he has done things which have left people bemused and prompted questions on the professionalism of the Bangladesh squad as a whole. He is a notorious premature celebrator, and never seems to learn from his mistakes. He seems to forget, that even if Bangladesh beat a side, they might have to play them again in the future. It also misses him how a team should set forth a certain level of expectation by not celebrating every victory, especially when they start improving in the hopes of reaching championship caliber level one day. But he does all this because of the aforementioned point of attention seeking syndrome, which he clearly suffers from.

Simply put, the man is too emotional. He once cried in a press conference when a certain club executive said he is not captaincy material. When the team does badly, his chirping behind the wickets disappears completely. After every missed catch, he hangs his head in shame. This is a hallmark of insecure bullies. When the going gets tough, they disappear. But when the team does well of course, his domineering scolding and posturing from behind the stumps rears its ugly head again, his wild celebrations makes a comeback.

These things will not go away, because they are a part of his personality. He should remain in the side on the merit of a batsman only. No person would have an issue with that. The problem manifests when his army of fans try to oversell him and his role in the team. Yes, he is a good batsman. Yes, he is a gritty character who works towards his own interest. But he is a bad wicketkeeper, and he is not good for the locker room. As long as we can agree to talk about it all when unpacking his career and impact on the team, I don’t ultimately care what your personal opinion of the man is. Let’s not blindly cheer any player. Let’s critique them as we see fit.

[Shingara]

Front page article mods?

[ToBeFair]

Keu amare mairala!

[iDumb]

Originally Posted by Roey Haque
I don’t ultimately care what your personal opinion of the man is. .

But we should care about your personal opinion?

Very little substance in that summary of yours. None of what you wrote is objective. The only objectives - that's his batting performance - he is doing well in. And he is in the team on merit.

He is not the captain in any format. Your post would make so much sense if you were writing to take his captaincy away. But you are writing for what? I am not clear. To strip him from wicket keeping? Many agree with that. But you need to have a regular batsman who also does superior keeping. We don't have that yet. You can not take away his gloves in the match when that other keeper somehow make the team. Also it is a management decision. Why would he voluntarily give up keeping?

Good you summarized everything here. Your recurrent posts against Mushfique looks even more irrational.

He doesn't have to smile or adapt to your definition of apt behavior. As long as he deliver results.. he is number 1 in my XI as a batsman. You have no case really.

[iDumb]

A lot of noise about nothing.

[Vahroone]

The senior players in the Bangladesh side are not the ones you should train your guns on.

It's the divas like Soumya Sarkar, Nasir Hossain and Anamul Haque who come into the team, look pretty for a handful of innings before losing complete interest and diverting their minds to the more fickle pleasures of life, as evidenced by their social media posts among other things.

Mushfiqur, Tamim, Shakib, Mahmudullah, Mashrafe, and to a lesser extent Imrul Kayes and Rubel Hossain are the ones who have crafted relatively wholesome careers and who should be respected for that. Sure, each of them might have some weaknesses or the other, but it's more of a routine than anything that deserves outright condemnation.

[aklemalp]

Do we know what goes on in the locker room?

He needs give up the gloves. No doubt about that.


Right now, he's this team's best batsman.

I don't think he's going anywhere soon.

Whatever wounds he's created in the past have been healed(wicketkeeping, nah. Those are still fresh, and infected).

[Shingara]

I agree with Roey that Mushy has selfishly held onto the position of wicketkeeping. He is short and makes a lot of mistakes. Ideally, we need a taller wicketkeeper. Nurul is the best alternative at the moment.
But, as long as Mushy and his seniors' syndicate are around, Nurul can't even get into the team.

We did giving someone else the gloves in Tests recently and I thought that was the end of Mushy as a wicketkeeper. Not sure what there was a U-turn after that.

[al Furqaan]

Management has given him the WK gloves.

Apart from that IF he’s a narcissist, or premature celebrator, he would make a fine US President. Only thing he has to do is collude with PCB or BCCI to throw an Asia Cup final and blow dog whistles to islamists and he will be a perfect shoo in.

[Mas_UK25]

Wasn't the 144 in Asia cup against Sri Lanka?

[godzilla]

Omg roey that's a long explanation. Since you did want to give me an explanation and I genuinely did want to know why you hated him, I will definitely read it when I have free time. Cheers and merry xmas

[i_am_ringo]

The reason Mushy is still keeping is because he feared his value to the team would deplete if his batting went through a dry spell.

So strategically he went back to the glove work

[Roey Haque]

Originally Posted by Mas_UK25
Wasn't the 144 in Asia cup against Sri Lanka?

Yep, thanks. Corrected it.

[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by i_am_ringo
The reason Mushy is still keeping is because he feared his value to the team would deplete if his batting went through a dry spell.

So strategically he went back to the glove work

Well Mushy has stated that WK helps his overall game prep. he claims that the WK gets the best view of the pitch and how the ball is behaving (bounce, movement) etc and that in turn helps his batting more than the workload would hamper it.

Honestly, if we get enough good batters in the top 5, I wouldn't mind Mushy batting at 6 and keeping, especially in non-Asian conditions where his WK is less exposed. Spinning conditions really require a good pair of hands.

Tamim, Shadman, Mominul is our best top 3. Shakib is a given batting at 5/6 or whereever. Question is the #4 if Mushy keeps at bats down the order. Not sold on Riyad, twin hundreds aside. I'd much rather see Mosaddek with his 60+ first class average. Riyad can still bat at 7, but Liton may have more upside than him (not sold on Liton either).

Alternatively we could have Nurul keep wicket and get rid of Riyad once and for all (good white ball player).

[godzilla]

Just read the whole thing. I was literally going to rewrite what iDumb wrote but what's the point of rewriting the same points.

[Jadukor]

Kdpp thread

[DinRaat.]

One word.....Anecdotal Opinons.

[godzilla]

Originally Posted by DinRaat.
One word.....Anecdotal Opinons.

Once you live in a small bubble surrounded by things you think are true for long enough, you start to believe them unfortunately. This is what happened to mr roey. We all sing the song of Mushfiqur not being a good keeper and should give up the gloves. We all sang the same song about he is not a good captain but roey goes that extra miles as if he is present in the dressing room/personal life of Mushfiqur 24/7. Shame really.

[freeman]

Give credit where it's due. After reading all this one thing I get is you have a personal agenda against the man or you simply don't like him!! Once I wrote about his keeping and I did that because he deserved that on that time but the man has changed a long way both in keeping and batting. He is the best batsman we got at the moment along with Tamim. There is no doubt about it. Even you believe this I think. Ask you heart honestly. If you have one man.

[ToBeFair]

Mushfiq must be doing this seeing this thread:

[Roey Haque]

Did not hear a single specific refutation so far. I just guess we have different levels of expectations. That's fine with me, but do me a favor and come back to this post before badgering me again about why Mushfiq is bad for the team. For the record, he should be in the team now, but we must also acknowledge that Bd paid and sacrificed heavily to accommodate and groom such a character, and continues to pay today because of his wicket keeping.

[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by Roey Haque
Did not hear a single specific refutation so far. I just guess we have different levels of expectations. That's fine with me, but do me a favor and come back to this post before badgering me again about why Mushfiq is bad for the team. For the record, he should be in the team now, but we must also acknowledge that Bd paid and sacrificed heavily to accommodate and groom such a character, and continues to pay today because of his wicket keeping.

I guess people are still interpreting it as blind hate that is not substantiated with any hard evidence. On top of that, the guy is the most valuable single batsman BD has across formats, which you've done well to acknowledge.

But I can offer a refutation point by point of the issues you've raised, and I would be willing to bet that MOST BD fans would agree with those points more than the tenuous-at-best ones you've cited in the OP.

1) Mushy is a Narcissist.

There isn't any evidence to suggest that he is. A narcist is one who is overly enamoured with oneself. The name comes from a character in Greek mythology who saw his reflection in water, and fell in love with himself to the point that he fell in and drowned.

I've never heard Mushy claiming to be a great batsman or a great WK. I don't think there is a single quote of such statements from Mushy, or any other BD player.

A true narcissist is someone who claims to be great at something without the evidence to support it (eg Donald Trump).

2) He says basic things from the stumps.

Have you heard what other wicket keepers say? I'm talking about guys like Bairstow, Paine, Watling etc? They all say the same thing "lovely ball, mate" or "come on lads" or even "come on Starc-ie". A wicket-keepers job is to constantly chatter in an effort to keep the fielding side (especially slip cordon and close in catchers) alert. Mitchell Starc doesn't need Tim Paine telling him to "come on" but its the method cricketers use.

3) Mushy criticizes his teammates.

True, but the criticism is always warranted. And Mushy is still right up there with Tamim and Shakib in terms of respect within the side. The only guy who ranks higher would be Mashrafe.

And remember Mashrafee yelling at Taskin in the last World Cup??? Mushy is not the first or even 50th captain to get annoyed with a teammate.

4) Mushy is immature.

The word is obnoxious perhaps, but not immature. If he's immature then so are the likes of Virat Kohli and Hasan Ali.

5) Mushy is emotional.

Mushy cried during a TV interview. Big woopty doo. Mashrafee cried during a Test match vs Zimbabwe. Bangladeshis are an emotional bunch. People cry during national anthems. No big deal.

[godzilla]

You do realize beside the captain/keeper points that you made, majority of the things you pointed are your own point of view towards mushfiqur the human being/player. If someone disagreed with you about the captain/keeper points/runs/how long it took him to mature as a batsmen, you would have been able to brought up stats/evidence. However, your personal opinions are personal opinions. You do as you please with it. But don't be surprised if people points you out on those BS opinions.

Take this as an example from your long essay
"Mushfiqur is narcissistic. He likes to be in the center of attention at all times. He constantly chirps from behind the wickets as if he has the necessary acumen of a bowler himself. He says the most basic things such as “to bowl in the right areas”."

If you don't see the problem of this and how biased you are towards your own personal feelings (you clearly hate this midgit), I don't even know how to debate you at this point. LOL

I have seen shakib done worst than telling bowlers where to bowl. Homeboy had the balls to show balls on live tv aswell, where's the big essay about the shakib hate?

[godzilla]

Originally Posted by al Furqaan



Have you heard what other wicket keepers say? I'm talking about guys like Bairstow, Paine, Watling etc? They all say the same thing "lovely ball, mate" or "come on lads" or even "come on Starc-ie". A wicket-keepers job is to constantly chatter in an effort to keep the fielding side (especially slip cordon and close in catchers) alert. Mitchell Starc doesn't need Tim Paine telling him to "come on" but its the method cricketers use.

Best one by far has to be paine to pant, trying to hire him as a babysitter and the boy shows up to babysit

[5tonne]

That's why I named you Royehim. You are obsessed about him. He probably comes in your dreams as nightmares.

Mushy was predicted to be the "future golden boy of Bangladesh Cricket" by Jamie Siddons. He has been labelled as most dilligent and hard working player in the team by many around him on numorous times. He is one of the fittest players in the team. I never heard any disciplinary issues against him. But I agree that his wicket keeping sucks. He has some emotional issues and limited imagination (shown in his captaincy) and at times shown some nepotism (towards M'Ullah). But he cares about the team. You will always see him yelling, screaming at team mates (not in a negative way) to keep up the energy level even when he is not captaining. He along with Tamim are the best bats in the team. No one is perfect. Overall, he is an asset for the team. I believe he is best suited for the vice captain role which he had been in the past.