Bangladesh cricket team’s success against New Zealand gives the cricket world a new force to be reckoned with
On 17th October 2010, cricket fans around the world saw a significant upset in ODI cricket history when Bangladesh (also known as Tigers) completed the series with a 4-0 win over New Zealand.
The victory came after a nail-biting match against the Black caps which resulted in a 3-run win over the tourists in the last match played in Mirpur, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747. The win sparked resounding celebrations in and outside the stadium as the home team registered
a clean sweep of the series.
The Bengali tigers had a poor start when they were bowled out for 174 runs by an enthusiastic New Zealand attack which threatened the host side. However, the threat was reversed when the top-order of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 succumbed to the strong Bangladeshi attack.
Although, the match has been set up by an inspiring bowling performance from the Black Caps, it wasn’t enough to inspire the batting order of the team who were outplayed by the tigers throughout the series.
Daniel Vettori- the New Zealand captain later called the series as “the worst” of his career and asked his team to learn from the opposition. This is not only true for the New Zealand players but cricket teams all over the world must learn from Bangladesh.
For years, the Bangladeshi cricket has been downplayed by cricket enthusiasts and critics alike. However, the last two months have forced them to change their opinions.
The Bangladeshi side was never consistent with wins. Moments of celebrations were short-lived as the big wins were overshadowed by even bigger defeats. Bangladesh has repeatedly performed poorly in the test matches winning only 3 tests out of a total of
68 played. The dismissal performance has lead to persistent calls for them to lose their status from Test cricket.
There was a time when Bangladeshi cricket was completely being written off and it was considered that the weakest of the weakest teams could win against Bangladesh. On October 28, 2007, an Australian cricketer James Siddons was named the coach of the almost
dead cricket team. Siddons had a tough challenge ahead and he made some changes in the team but it did not yield the results he wanted.
After a disastrous performance against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Netherlands-c753 in July, Siddons decided to pull up his socks and what followed ahead for the team was a never practiced before training session. A few regular journalists have never seen the sudden exhausting and extensive
training of the team including net and fielding practices for a good 9 hours. For the first time all the players were training as in the previous years, the players were seen sitting idle. A new bowling coach Ian Pont and a specialist fielding Coach Julien
Fountain was also appointed. A new psychologist was also appointed to help the players during the exhausting sessions.
The new fielding coach’s help is visible throughout the series as the Bengali tigers had an efficient fielding reflex. The fast bowlers namely Shafiul and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Rubel-Hossain-c2378 gained from the advice of the new bowling coach.
The most significant fact to be noticed here is that nobody in the Tigers
camp complained about the gruelling training sessions. All the players understood the need for the extra practice and their confidence was boosted with each practice as witnessed by everyone. The sessions provided the players with great preparation and the
team oozed with confidence during the series against New Zealand. Even though they had an early scare in the last ODI against New Zealand, they still fought back with a confidence never seen before.
Many critics now believe that a foreign coach has tremendously changed the face of Bangladeshi cricket. Siddons three-year stint as the Bangladeshi coach is finally getting recognition in the cricket world. In the words of Siddons,
“we worked on skills that we never tried this time”- it was an ongoing process and the players are now reaping the rewards of the hard work. The team is basking in glory and slowly but surely, they are becoming tigers in true sense.
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