Third consecutive innings defeat for Bangladesh

Some of the reporters might not have finished their breakfast or some fans still might not have had the first sip on the cup of hot tea. Rawalpindi was glorified by sunshine, under the blue sky and bright sunshine, the visitors gave up quickly as if they had to catch the afternoon flight as early as possible. The wickets tumbled at a regular interval to complete yet another dismal batting display by Bangladesh in white clothes.

Pakistan would savour this victory and the lack of fight from the visitors have paved the way for an extra day rest. In fact, winning a Test match so easily does not even give the opposition the satisfaction. Bangladesh had the starts to pose a threat, but those starts were followed by the exhibition of wicket-throwing courtesy of poor shot selection and feet movement.

Bangladesh had six batsmen trapped leg before wicket in the second innings, which happened second time in their Test journey. The first one happened against Sri Lanka in the first innings of first Test at Chattogram in 2009. Zimbabwe(7 L.B.W. against England in 2003) and New Zealand (7 L.B.W. against Australia) lead the list of the most leg before wicket dismissals in an innings.

Such a scenario clearly indicates our lack of ability to move the feet against the deliveries which are nipping back in or pitched further up. Such a habit of poor feet movement develops while playing on docile decks in the domestic circuit, where there remains few for a bowler to offer and thus batters can notch-up daddy hundreds even without moving his feet more often. But whenever the Bangladeshi batters get out of their comfort zone, the going gets tougher.

Despite the Rawalpindi deck being good enough to bat on, why the Bangladeshi batters capitulated remains a moot question. One particular explanation could be, the habit that develops on domestic cricket’s docile decks does not ebb away easily at the back of the mind.

Then the exhibition of executing poor shots while being set at the wicket continues to hurt consistently. One witnessed such in the Test series against India and was repeated at Rawalpindi. Senior batsmen like Mominul Haque, Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah Riyad’s sense and sensibility came under a question mark with their shot selections. It is easy to say that Bangladesh came to Pakistan without two of their most important players, but there are players in the team, who played enough Tests so far to guide the batting line-up in the right direction.

For the third consecutive time, Bangladesh have digested an innings defeat. The defeat at Rawalpindi had been their 89th defeat in Test cricket from 118 Tests with a losing percentage of 75.42%.

The country is elated after the victory of young Tigers in South Africa, but beneath that shinning achievement there lies darkness – the sad story of Bangladesh Test team.  

Note: This article has been posted at Cricketsoccer as CSdesk on 11/02/2020 Third consecutive innings defeat for Bangladesh 

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Faisal Caesar