The Tiger on Threat
After losing every test match amid the miserable condition minnows Bangladesh are in threat of losing their Test status because most of the top teams are unwilling to play the five-day test match against the tiger (Bangladesh Team) in a tight international cricket schedule that is facing demands for the addition of lucrative, multi-million dollars Twenty20 matches. According to the Daily Telegraph reports complaints about the tiger’s on-field performances and results have been a regular theme of the last eight years. However, it is financial logic that has, at this moment, led the leading cricket powers to turn against them. On the other hand, with an increasing number of Twenty20 tournaments competing for room in the international cricket calendar, most of the top teams such as Australia and England are no longer prepared to play any loss-making and financially unproductive series against a weak team like Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has failed to improve performance since their first Test in November 2000 against India and now their overall record stands at only one win against Zimbabwe among 58 matches. David Morgan, president, International Cricket Council (ICC), said ‘There is no reason why a team should have to play Test matches just because it is a full member of the International Cricket Council.’ He added, ‘If a team is not gaining anything from the experience, then perhaps it might be better to settle for one-day international status.’
Bangladesh is not likely to draw enough support from James Sutherland, chief executive of Cricket Australia. Sutherland said he believes they (Bangladesh Team) are driving down the quality of international cricket at a time when it is more important than ever to keep standards high. ‘With the growth in the Twenty20 market, it is important to take the clutter out of the game,’ he said. He added ‘We need to make sure we are playing cricket for quality’s sake, not for quantity, and in recent times I’m not sure that the quality has always been there’. He further added, ‘The Bangladesh team that came here this year performed far worse than the previous team, which toured in 2003. It’s a difficult balancing act, you want to help them develop, but we lost a lot of money hosting them and I don’t think their presence is doing anything for the game.’
Some one-day series - for example the one played in Australia in the month of August and September - could be difficult for the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to organize in the current environment. On the other hand, England, who are owing to host two Tests against Bangladesh Team at the start of the 2010 summer, are particularly keen to get some better replacements who might be much commercially viable.
Hopefully enough, Bangladesh may be the seventh-most populous country in the world; nevertheless its development plan and system has completely failed to produce any convincing or promising international cricket players for several years now. Additionally, it has been weakened seriously by a spate of recent defections to the Indian Cricket League (ICL), including that of former Bangladeshi captain Habibul Bashar. According to news later this month in Perth, Australia a meeting of ICC executive board will discuss ways of making Test cricket more attractive to protect it from aggression of Twenty20 match.
Recently, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has created pressure on the four host countries of the 2011 World Cup to speed up their all types of preparations and restorations program for the event, because ICC think that four host were running approximately ten months behind the official schedule. The four host countries are Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for the event.
One of the senior Pakistani batsmen Mohammad Yousuf (born 27, August 1974) has already flown to India to play the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) in spite of his selection on 3 November Monday in the national team for three one-day international matches against West Indies in Abu Dhabi this month.
International 