3rd Test: Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh at Kandy

[Ljp86]

Re: 3rd Test: Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh at Kandy

700 wickets good effort by Murali however it is pretty tainted against Bangladesh, would have been better if he got it v Australia

Just before I start, welcome to the boards Jolldo. @|

Back to the game. Pretty lame effort from the Bangladeshis there. Showed a bit of fight early but there was no-one else that was willing to stand up and be counted. Once again, Bangladesh have failed to make Sri Lanka bat twice and is the third time in this series that they have lost by an innings (innings and 193 runs to be exact).

In fact, this is only the third time in a 3-test series that a side has lost all three games by an innings which is a record that no team would want to have.

Muralitharan picks up another six wickets in the third innings with Malinga and de Silva getting two each. I have to say, that even though Murali did pick up his 700th wicket, to pick up 12 in one test against Bangladesh makes them look pretty cheap. But, he did bowl pretty well and you can only play the teams you are matched against.

That brings me to Bangladesh's plight. A very, very disappointing effort after having a relatively successful World Cup in making the Super Eight stage of the tournament. Serious questions must be asked of them now, they remain extremely uncompetitive in the test arena and this trend has not changed even though they have been playing test matches for around seven years. Perhaps they should be playing sides like Zimbabwe and Ireland to see how they fare against those type of sides. I recall a while back that a Bangladesh assistant coach described the team as "stagnating".

Regardless, an easy win to Sri Lanka, both teams now head into the one-day series. Bangladesh will be keen to show some improvement when those matches commence on July 20th.

 

[Jolldo87]

Re: 3rd Test: Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh at Kandy

Thanks for the welcome mate.

The way i see things is the Bangladesh have fallen into the subcontinental trend of focusing primarily on one day cricket and then test cricket. Bangladesh need to start to focusing more on test cricket. If they are not more competitive in their next couple of test series i suggest that the ICC should look at removing them from test cricket until they can prove to be competitive in ODI's. Bangladesh could probably go back and play 4 dayers against Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands, Kenya etc... They can go back and prove that they can dominate these teams before being given another shot in test cricket.

 

[Ljp86]

Re: 3rd Test: Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh at Kandy

Thanks for the welcome mate.

The way i see things is the Bangladesh have fallen into the subcontinental trend of focusing primarily on one day cricket and then test cricket. Bangladesh need to start to focusing more on test cricket.

At the moment, there is little motivation for Bangladesh to be competitive in test matches. The World Cup is based on one-day cricket and then there is new Twenty20 World Cup coming up in September which focuses on an even shorter version of the game.

Then there is the fact that Bangladesh doesn't play as much test cricket as the other countries. This adds to their problem of being uncompetitive.

It's kind of a vice-versa thing. One on hand, Bangladesh doesn't play enough test cricket and they aren't being given the opportunity to truly get into the rhythm of playing regular test matches. But then when the do play a series of test matches, like the one we saw against Sri Lanka, they are shown to be horribly out of their depth like what we saw in the third test and in the previous two tests before then.

If they are not more competitive in their next couple of test series i suggest that the ICC should look at removing them from test cricket until they can prove to be competitive in ODI's. Bangladesh could probably go back and play 4 dayers against Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands, Kenya etc... They can go back and prove that they can dominate these teams before being given another shot in test cricket.

I've been saying this for a while now.

Bangladesh are slowly getting better at one-day cricket and they are winning games more often. Like what you've said, I believe that Bangladesh should play the associate nations and Zimbabwe in a series of four day games. The last series between Zimbabwe and Bangladesh was a good one, even though it was between the 9th and 10th placed sides at the time. The problem is though, due to Zimbabwe's political situation and the fact their cricket set-up is a shambles at the moment, I would say that isn't going to happen.

Bangladesh's next test series is against South Africa in February 2008 at home. They then follow that up with a series against Australia in Australia in July of 2008. Overall, that's a total of four tests in one year (now till then) and you could argue in favour of one in my points mentioned above, that that is not enough test cricket for a "test" nation.

I would say there won't be any sort of thought put into Bangladesh's test status until after the tour of Australia next year should they keep sustaining such heavy losses. I very much doubt the ICC would even consider thinking about retracting their test status at all.

 

[Wilbix]

Re: 3rd Test: Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh at Kandy

I have a simple solution (that should have been implemented about a month ago).

Drop the UAE and Namibia from the Intercontinental Cup, and put Zim and Bang in their places. The UAE is getting beat up on even by Canada, and need to get themselves in order, while Zimbabwe and Bangladesh clearly need to play against some competition more at their level. Sounds good to me - but it's now two years until this step could be taken again

 

[Jolldo87]

Re: 3rd Test: Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh at Kandy

I have a simple solution (that should have been implemented about a month ago).

Drop the UAE and Namibia from the Intercontinental Cup, and put Zim and Bang in their places. The UAE is getting beat up on even by Canada, and need to get themselves in order, while Zimbabwe and Bangladesh clearly need to play against some competition more at their level. Sounds good to me - but it's now two years until this step could be taken again

That makes alot of sense. Why can't it be implemented for 2 years?

 

[Ljp86]

Re: 3rd Test: Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh at Kandy

That makes alot of sense. Why can't it be implemented for 2 years?

UAE, Namibia, Ireland, Scotland, Canada and the Netherlands all play in the Intercontinental Cup which runs for about two years. The teams play each other over that period of time with the better performing teams getting a chance to mix it with the bigger nations (i.e the quadrangular series and one-off one-day games).

There are also a number of divisions which run below the intercontinental Cup which also span a period of about two years. The process works on a relegation and promotion basis (the top two teams from each division move up to the next grade while the two bottom teams move down to the grade below).

Because the system is set-up for two years, it can't be altered otherwise you'll muck it up. So, if Bangladesh and Zimbabwe were to be dropped back to the Intercontinental Cup competition, it won't be possible until 2009 at the earliest.

Pretty certain that it works that way. Wilbix will know more.

 

[Jolldo87]

Re: 3rd Test: Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh at Kandy

UAE, Namibia, Ireland, Scotland, Canada and the Netherlands all play in the Intercontinental Cup which runs for about two years. The teams play each other over that period of time with the better performing teams getting a chance to mix it with the bigger nations (i.e the quadrangular series and one-off one-day games).

There are also a number of divisions which run below the intercontinental Cup which also span a period of about two years. The process works on a relegation and promotion basis (the top two teams from each division move up to the next grade while the two bottom teams move down to the grade below).

Because the system is set-up for two years, it can't be altered otherwise you'll muck it up. So, if Bangladesh and Zimbabwe were to be dropped back to the Intercontinental Cup competition, it won't be possible until 2009 at the earliest.

Pretty certain that it works that way. Wilbix will know more.

Thanks for that.

Hopefully Bangladesh improve heaps over the next couple of years so that their will be no talk on Bandladesh getting relegated. Also if Zimbabwe work their politics out, they have proven to have plenty of good cricketers and they can be a somewhat competitive team.

2009 is a long way off yet and who knows Ashraful could improve in leaps and bounds and become as good as Tendulkar. You just can't tell what will happen but you can only hope that Bangladesh improve heaps and become a really competitive team.