Bangladesh national cricket team

The Bangladeshi cricket team is a national cricket team representing Bangladesh and is nicknamed the Tigers. It is administered by the Bangladesh Cricket Board.

Bangladesh is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and one-day international status. It played its first Test match in 2000 (against India at Dhaka), becoming the tenth Test nation.

Bangladesh's promotion to Test status was criticized, as many regarded the team as too weak to compete against the established Test nations. The fact that the team lost 31 of its first 34 Tests, including a record losing streak of 21 games, has provided fodder for such criticism. The team came tantalisingly close to winning a Test match a few times, but were denied every time until January 2005, when they finally broke the jinx in their 35th attempt and scored their maiden Test victory in Chittagong against the touring Zimbabwe team. Despite the long time taken for Bangladesh to register its first Test win, New Zealand took decades before winning its first Test, but have taken their place as a respectable team on the international test arena, who are capable of putting up a strong fight against any team.

Since winning its first Test, Bangladesh has shown gradual improvement in international cricket and has produced some memorable wins, including a one-day win against the current world champion, Australia. In 2006 Bangladesh white-washed Kenya for the first time in their history. In a four-match One Day International tournament, the visiting Kenyans were out-played by a much-improved Bangladeshi side who were considered the weaker outfit just a few years earlier. In the same year, Bangladesh went close to winning a Test match against the world champion Australia. Australia ultimately prevailed by three wickets, the result influenced by some poor fielding and a great knock by Australian captain, Ricky Ponting.

The Bangladesh cricket team starred in the 2007 World Cup as the youngest cricket team to have ever been in the world cup. Having only three players above the age of 24, the Bangladesh cricket team has been repeatedly described as a team with great potential. Among the younger players were three teenagers: the 17 year old Tamim Iqbal, 19 year old Sakib Al-Hasan and 18 year old Mushfiqur Rahim who was also chosen to be wicket keeper in place of the legendary ever-present Khaled Mashud. Bangladesh was the first team to arrive at the West Indies for the 2007 World Cup as their coach Dav Whatmore wanted the team have a good preparation for the upcoming matches. In their first game of the 2007 World Cup held in the West Indies, Bangladesh stunned India by defeating them by 5-wickets. The Bangladeshi bowlers did an effortful job of restricting India to only 191 runs. During their chase, the 17-year old Tamim Iqbal scored an outstanding 51 runs off just 53 balls which gave the Bangladeshi batsmen a flying start and led them to winning the match. During their second match, Bangladesh suffered a huge loss against Sri Lanka by 198 runs (by the D/L method). However, in their third match, Bangladesh beat Bermuda by 7 wickets (by the D/L method) and that victory along with the victory against India eventually led to Bangladesh advancing into the second-round of the 2007 Cricket World Cup called the Super-8 round. This also led to the unexpected knockout of India from the 2007 Cricket World Cup which left almost a billion Indian cricket fans disappointed and enraged. After their entry to the Super-8 round, Bangladesh endured two brutal defeats, the first against Australia by 10 wickets, and the second against New Zealand by 9 wickets. This led to critics suggesting that Bangladesh's victory against India was a random spark. However, Bangladesh once again proved their critics wrong. During their third Super-8 match they beat South Africa by a stunning margin of 67 runs. Mohammad Ashraful starred in this match scoring a brilliant 87 runs of only 83 balls, and was awarded man of the match. South Africa was ranked the number 1 ODI playing cricket nation at that time.

History of Bangladeshi international cricket

1999

Bangladesh beat Pakistan by 62 runs during the 1999 Cricket World Cup. Bangladesh managed 223/9 from 50 overs. Pakistan could only manage 161 due to a few run-outs by wicketkeeper Khaled Mashud and some tight bowling by Khaled Mahmud, who took 3/31 from 10 overs.

2003

In September, Bangladesh came very close to their first Test victory, when they lost to Pakistan by only one wicket.

2004

In December, Bangladesh defeated India in their 100th ODI, this being only the third time that they beat a Test playing nation.

2005

Early January, Bangladesh defeated Zimbabwe in their 35th Test, their first ever Test match victory. In the first Test of the series, Bangladesh defeated Zimbabwe by 226 runs in Chittagong Stadium. Bangladesh scored a huge total of 488 in the first innings. In reply, Zimbabwe was all out for only 312 for their first innings. Bangladesh's 2nd innings was declared after scoring 204 for 9 wickets. Powered by a spirited spell from Enamul Haque Jr., who took 6 wickets for 45 runs, Bangladesh wrapped up Zimbabwe's innings for only 154.

Bangladesh would have needed to get the fourth-highest fourth innings total to win in Test cricket history in the second Test of the series. They opted to play out the last four sessions playing conservatively and consequently secured a draw. This gave the team its first Test series win and triggered scenes of wild jubilation across the country. National coach Dav Whatmore was later quoted as saying that playing overly-aggressive cricket to try to win the Test would not have been a good idea.

Bangladesh also secured their first one-day international series win in the same tour. Despite losing the first two matches of the five-match series, they recovered to win the series 3-2.

On June 18, Bangladesh scored an upset victory over the mighty Australia in the NatWest Series. Australia scored 249 runs for 5 wickets in 50 overs. In reply, Bangladesh reached 250 runs with 4 balls to spare. Mohammad Ashraful scored 100 runs off just 101 balls, his first one-day century, while Aftab Ahmed hit a huge six in the first ball of the final over, and hit a single for the next ball to win the game. This win was a triumph for a Bangladeshi team that had been criticised by Richie Benaud, Mike Gatting and others as incompetent and not good enough for Test or ODI cricket in the English media, just days before.

2006

The first home one-day international series of 2006 began with some optimism for Bangladesh, who registered their first-ever win against Sri Lanka in the second ODI of the series. At the end of March, Bangladesh played four ODIs against Kenya, winning all four. Then in April, they came very close to beating Australia in a Test match, taking a first-innings lead of 158, and eventually losing by only three wickets after bowler Mashrafe Mortaza dropped what could possibly have been a catch to turn the match around. In the end of July, Bangladesh toured Zimbabwe as the ODI series favourites but lost by three games to two. However, in August, the team defeated Kenya in all three matches of a series and subsequently went on to whitewash Zimbabwe in an ODI series staged in Bangladesh. That year, Shahriar Nafees became the first Bangladeshi to score over a thousand runs (which included three centuries) in a calendar year while Mashrafe Mortaza became the leading wicket-taker in the world in ODIs staged in 2006.

2007

On 17 March, in their first match of the 2007 Cricket World Cup, Bangladesh stunned India with a five wicket victory in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Bangladesh scored 195/5 in reply to India's 191 all out with half-centuries for Saqibul Hasan (53), Mushfiqur Rahim (56 not out) and the 17 year old Tamim Iqbal (51). Only Sourav Ganguly (66) and Yuvraj Singh (47) posted respectable scores for India. On March 21, though, they lost to Sri Lanka 318/4 to 112 all out, Bangladesh losing by 198 runs. However, on 25 March, Bangladesh recouped its loss 96/3 to 94/9 win against Bermuda, advancing to the Super 8 round and cementing India's first-round elimination in the tournament. Bangladesh lost to Australia on 1 April in that tournament and also to New Zealand. On April 7 they won an outstanding game against South Africa by a big margin of 67 runs. [1]

For match details see Wikinews

The future

Bangladeshi captain Habibul Bashar and coach Dav Whatmore have said that they hope Bangladesh will become a serious cricketing contender by 2010. Cricket's enormous popularity with the Bangladeshi people has produced a mood of optimism that this ambition can be achieved. Bangladesh's U19 team, the stepping stone before the International Test scene, regularly performs well against established Test nation's U19 teams. In the recent 2006 U-19 Cricket World Cup, Bangladesh were one of the favourites to win beforehand, but fell in the quarter finals to England U19.

Many have criticised Bangladesh's elevation to Test Status. The country's supporters counter this by pointing out that it took New Zealand, now a strong international side in both forms of the game, many years to win its first Test match. Possibly due to these doubts about Bangladesh's ability to compete at the highest level, Bangladesh will only get the opportunity to play 41 tests through 2006 - 2012 (The least among full ICC members with the sole exception of Zimbabwe), according to the recently publicised ICC Future Tours Programme.

India, which strongly supported Bangladesh’s bid for test status in 2001, is the only full member nation not to invite Bangladesh to play on its own soil, even though Bangladesh is due to tour India three times between 2006 and 2012. Bangladesh has yet to play a Test on Indian soil. Some have suggested that India, which will be one of the busiest cricketing nations during this period, did not schedule to play Bangladesh because of time conflicts and fear of player fatigue. However, this still strengthens the notion that Bangladesh is not on an even footing with other Test playing nations when it comes to securing regular international fixtures. For example, Bangladesh usually plays only two tests in a test series, while most other countries play three or more matches.^[1] ^[2]