You and I and maybe not even as many as nine of our mates would have a decent chance of beating Bangladesh in time to be in the pub to watch a decent game of cricket. That is, nothing like what the visitors have played.
Sunday Times
TELFORD VICE in Cape Town
WHY have Bangladesh been so abjectly poor in South Africa? Played four, lost four. And with not a little embarrassment at the margins of their thrashings.
In the latest of them — in Paarl on Wednesday, where South Africa clinched, if the word can be used in such a flaccid fakery of a contest, the one-day series with victory by 104 runs — there were but muffled protests from reporters present that they had been consigned to a pressbox that offered a fine view of a row of pillars ranged between the windows and the field, and not a lot else.
Who, after all, wants to watch this crap? Not the Bangladeshi press, who seemed cheerier than usual that they couldn’t see much of the cricket. Not the South African press, who have lost interest in hidings that carry no context for the season ahead.
It’s not often you’ll find, in this space, sympathy for the devil that is the paid punditry squawking from yonder television. But you couldn’t help feel sorry for the poor lambs on commentary as they tried to talk some clothes onto their buck naked, butt ugly emperor.
Happily, the still rising stink from the sad soap opera formerly known as the T20 Global League, stillborn in a mess of ego and avarice, will keep cricket’s writers and readers interested at least until proper teams India and Australia arrive in the New Year.
You and I and maybe not even as many as nine of our mates would have a decent chance of beating Bangladesh in time to be in the pub to watch a decent game of cricket. That is, nothing like what the visitors have played.
You wouldn’t want to be the unfortunate who has to explain all that to Bangladesh’s cricket crazy population of 160-million, who read around 30 daily newspapers, watch more than 100 television channels and click on thousands of websites.
When one such unfortunate, Mushfiqur Rahim, tried to step up to that poisoned plate in the wake of his team’s thrashing in the test series, he was shouted down by the suits — from 9 000 kilometres away.
“It is a matter of the country's image when he makes these statements on tour,” Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hassan, safely away from the firing line in Dhaka, told ESPNCricinfo. “The board is concerned with his statement because it is not consistent with the information we have.
“Mushfiqur is a little different than others, not in a negative sense. He doesn’t express himself much. The quiet types are hard to understand. And they end up saying unexpected things.”
Like, we’re just not good enough. Sorry. Which Mushfiqur could have said without being challenged. Instead, he took the blame.
Part of why Bangladesh have played such awful cricket on this tour is tied to their pathological fear of batting in South African conditions, even though the pitches they have played on in Potchefstroom, Bloemfontein, Kimberley and Paarl have been flat as Eastern Cape vowels.
Speaking of which, the ODI series concludes at Buffalo Park in East London on Sunday. Another flatty surely awaits. But will Bangladesh find the balls to bat first if they win the toss? They have, after all, won all four tosses so far — and refused to bat three times.
Bangladesh’s batting has been flakier than a week-old paratha, and all that has been flatter than the pitches is their bowling. Real live tigers should sue that their names have been taken in vain by this sorry bunch.
But there’s more to it than that. Had cricket not waited until 2000 to bestow test status on a country where the game had been played since the 1790s their team would have been far better by now.
Why are Bangladesh so poor, especially away from home? Ask cricket itself.
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