After the euphoria of one-day series win at home against three of the top Test-playing nations, Bangladesh get down to real business Tuesday in the first of the two Tests against South Africa at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chittagong.
Published : 20 Jul 2015, 11:22 PM
There is no doubt that the ODI victories against Pakistan, India and the Proteas were well-deserved and Bangladesh showed maturity to evolved into a force to reckon with in the shorter version of the game.
But the same cannot be said about them when it comes to Test cricket. The Tigers have only seven wins to show for in the 91 Tests they have played so far – five against Zimbabwe and two against West Indies – while 13 ended in draws.
So, 71 losses and 36 of them were innings defeats.
The question that naturally comes to mind is why has the Test team not been able to achieve the success in the 15 years since it attained Test status on June 26, 2000 and played its first ever Test match against India at Dhaka in November that year?
There is no doubt that there have been some remarkable personal achievements and these have to be duly recognised and appreciated. For example, recently in the Khulna Test against Pakistan, Tamim Iqbal and Imrul Kayes shared an opening wicket partnership of 312 runs, individually scoring 206 and 150 runs respectively.
No mean feat by any standard. But as a Test-playing nation, are Bangladesh moving anywhere? The statistics do speak for themselves.
There is massive interest in cricket in Bangladesh and there is a similarly huge expectation about the national team. Every time the fans leave the grounds disappointed, they come back again hoping that things would improve this time around.
But, the big question is – have things improved as far as Test cricket is concerned? There is a phenomenal amount of money in cricket but the standard is just mediocre.