"Could"s do make a difference.Neil Pickup said:Could, could, could. What makes teams is whether they do or don't. This lot patently didn't.
They scare me too!Neil Pickup said:And incidentally, I had a dream about an ODI double-century last night. Brian Lara made 342* batting at five against England.
There was also some random guy called Nazim or Nazam or something batting at ten who made 200*.
My dreams scare me.
Aside from the fact competing means nothing (at least you say that when we talk about Bangladesh competing better now) - I still don't see that they did compete in many of the games. 1 win, and in all the draws they conceded 1st innings leads (all but 1 of them by more than 100 runs). Of the losses, only 1 was less than 6 wickets, and 1 less than 100 runs.Richard said:What matters is not winning IMO, it is competing
New Zealand and the West Indies didn't exactly win a bunch when they started out.Richard said:All of this is impressive use of numbers but IMO it doesn't really tell the true story.
And competing most certainly does mean something - and just because Bangladesh are coming closer to competing now than they were 2 years ago, still doesn't mean much!
I know the true story is that in supposed spell when they weren't substandard, they won 1 out of 34 competitive Tests.Richard said:All of this is impressive use of numbers but IMO it doesn't really tell the true story.
Yet even when Zimbabwe were being beaten time and again it does mean something because you have this theory that they were competing in every game (in spite of the large number of heavy defeats and 1st innings deficits)Richard said:And competing most certainly does mean something - and just because Bangladesh are coming closer to competing now than they were 2 years ago, still doesn't mean much!
No, they didn't - 70 years ago!Mr Mxyzptlk said:New Zealand and the West Indies didn't exactly win a bunch when they started out.
Then they were by-and-large hopeless against England (however inept England's batting was on occasions), and have rarely if ever (except that West Indies series) pushed anyone in ODIs. West Indies also thrashed them once they got their act together.Competing more now means a hell of a lot. Common sense would dictate that a team that was regularly thrashed and then starts to compete is improving. Improvement is gradual toward consistent victories. Bangladesh were predicted to roll over against Australia and they fought hard. Against Pakistan they pushed almost to the point of victory on two occasions. Then they pushed the West Indies in 3 ODIs and 1 Test. That's improvement.
And I've now looked it up myself - it's actually 18 matches in the relevant period, 2000\01-2002\03 (7 of which were in Sri Lanka and India).marc71178 said:I know the true story is that in supposed spell when they weren't substandard, they won 1 out of 34 competitive Tests.
No, not every game (for instance, they were thrashed in India, twice, and Sri Lanka, like most teams). But plenty enough to merit Test-status.Yet even when Zimbabwe were being beaten time and again it does mean something because you have this theory that they were competing in every game (in spite of the large number of heavy defeats and 1st innings deficits)
Yet your beloved Zimbabwe were competing just as infrequently and you don't consider them even substandard...Richard said:Bangladesh might be competing every now and then - that's still far, far, far too infrequent to merit them of Test and ODI status.
Over how many innings 300? 400?krishneelz said:I think glen mcgrath has wat it takes to score 200*