WC 2019: Game by Game post-mortem

[al Furqaan]

Its funny how everyone criticizing the team and players (Mashrafee, Mushy, Tamim) were also the ones predicting "BD would lose every game" and "Afghanistan are better than us".

You guys are the definition of bandwagon or fair weather fans. Typical Bangali with borderline personality disorder: we beat Irealand and 2nd string WI team so Bangladesh is a great team. We finish 8th in the world cup due to a combination of bad luck and poor cricket so the knives come out.

I had always been predicting we would win between 4-5 games. My prediction was correct: we won 3 and lost the 4th win due against Sri Lanka to rain.

So here is a game by game analysis of our world cup campaign since many of you still won't buy into what I'm saying:

South Africa (Win)
South Africa are chokers, and they were poor even by their underachieving standards. Still a team with QDK, Faf, Rabada, Ngidi, and Tahir are no pushovers. They had no trouble beating Afghanistan or Sri Lanka. They even took down the mighty Australians. Coming into the tournament we had to beat one of AUS/IND/ENG/NZ/SA and this game notched that.
FInal Grade: B+. We scored 330 with everyone in the top order contributing although SA's fielding was terrible. The runs still had to be scored though, and we did. We bowled and fielded fairly well. In particular the wickets of Markram (bowled Shakib) and Faf (bowled Mehidy) were terrific balls.

New Zealand (Loss)
We actually didn't play that badly. Lets not forget brilliant fieliding (the best I've seen in my 16 years following the game and about 10 years watching cricket) easily saved 30 or more runs for NZ. I know because I was actually at the ground. We batted well enough to score 270-280 and ended up with 245. Full credit to NZ. Can't criticize our boys that much. Yes, Mushy f***d up a stumping and there is no justifying or ignoring that matter. Still, we forget that we fought back from an impossible position and at one stage even had the upper hand when NZ were 8 down and still 20 runs behind.
Final Grade: C+. Probably the best you can play and still lose a game. We really did give this one all we had.

England (Loss)
Poor bowling really. Conceded close to 400, granted it was England. Batting was lackadaisical as well, although we did manage to score 280, that was almost all Shakib. A very poor effort overall.
Final Grade: D.

Sri Lanka (No result)
No game, and in all likelihood we lost 1 point here. That 1 point alone would have made us finish 6th, which would not have been that bad a finish.
No Grade

West Indies (Win)
The highest successful chase of this world cup. And done inside 42 overs. It was a total demolition job. Fantastic batting. Simply stupendous. Bowling was perhaps mediocre, but the Fizz struck clutch blows once again.
Final Grade: A

Australia (Loss)
Tough game. One of the best, if not the best side in the tournament. Like the England game, we bowled crap. But the batsmen stood up. Scored 333 batting second against a very strong bowling attack. Rahim was the main star this time.
Final Grade: B-

Afghanistan (Win)
Self explanatory. Solid performance on a tough wicket.
Final Grade: B

India (Loss)
28 run defeat was actually more of a blowout than the score suggests. Still it was a good effort from Saifuddin. Bangladesh did show some heart first with the ball as Fizz took a 5-fer and then with the bat as well. Had we won the toss and batted first, a total of 286 or 300+ would quite possible have delivered a W
Final Grade: C

Pakistan (Loss)
The only winnable game we lost. This was a very disappointing performance, but it doesnt erase the achievements of the current team and players.
Final Grade: F

Assigning numbers to the grades gives a squence of:
3.3+2.3+1.0+4.0+2.7+3.0+2.0 and that divided by 8 gives a GPA of 2.288 on the 4.0 scale. That is basically a C+ overall. Not a great world cup, but not a terrible one a la 2003 or 2011.