Also my family went up to Darwin to watch Bangladesh's in the ODI series against Australia in 2008 and ended up getting an invite to a function held by the local Deshi community after the useless ***** got skittled for 74. The tour manager was an old family friend and he introduced us to Ashraful and told him we'd flown all the way up from Melbourne and Ashraful looked mortified and immediately said, "I'm so sorry!"
I was introduced to Mehrab Hossain jr and he was telling me it was hard to face Mitchell Johnson because he gets so much bounce. Because I had excellent social skills, I indicated that they still should have done better. At which point he gave me a look and lost all interest in the interaction.
Then after the second match, we went to a local family's house where the squad was invited to dinner. Ashraful remembered me from the first meeting and said hello. Several of the younger chaps, including 20 year old Shakib Al Hasan, were sat on the couch playing FIFA 08 with the children of the local families. They referred to the host as "Aunty".
Mortaza, Alok Kapali and a bunch of others proved themselves to be shameless chain smokers, going outside constantly to light up another ciggie and ring people back home on their mobiles.
I listened in on a conversation between a local Deshi and Mortaza in which the local guy spoke to him with the deference that Deshis show their superiors and Mortaza held court. I learned that Mortaza hates the rich people in Bangladesh and has no interest in befriending them. And that his best friend is one of the domestic helpers who works in his house. And also that he's the man of the house and he approved his sister's marriage because the suitor seemed like a good boy. And that he prefers to live in a fairly modest property because that's all you need*.
Then the conversation turned to Bangladeshi music and I was asked which bands I liked and I froze and said the name of the one band I could think of, which was Black, and Mortaza said in English, "Black? I ****ing hate black." And that was the end of that conversation.
*unsure if this was still his outlook on wealth and wealthy people after he became an Awami League minister