*Official* South Africa in Bangladesh: Two Test Series, 21-25 Oct, 29 Oct-2 Nov 2024

[andruid]

Markram has clearly dropped the match here

 

[Aritro]

That really sounds like an incredible story, to play a ODI with no cricket experience playing with a cricket ball. (Mustafizur Rahman)

Cricinfo has another story.

But still, your story is amazing..

Yeah I said "until about five minutes before his first match", which was very obviously hyperbole and phrased in a way that should have made that clear, if you're not obtuse af.

But still, that was an amazing(ly sh*t) "gotcha" moment.

 

[Aritro]

Lol they're 3 for 29 this time.

 

[SeamUp]

I don't think we saw Pato/Muthusamy contributing much.

Muthusamy left Durban to get more batting responsibility in Potch & it didn't really go as he wanted. Hence move to the Warriors. Saw him in the T20s getting mullered a few weeks back.

Pato bowling mid 120s probably has no future against the top teams but here we are.

Credit Conrad and his planning?

 

[Aritro]

Commentator saying Shanto didn't pick the right length for that reverse sweep. Aren't reverse sweeps always premeditated?

 

[Aritro]

Wow, Zakir with the single stupidest brain fade I've seen since the last time we played cricket.

 

[Heboric]

Yeah those two wickets were really "special" shots

 

[SeamUp]

It's sad. What is needed to take Bangladesh cricket forward?

Sri Lanka & Zimbabwe got consistently competitive far quicker. Afghanistan don't play as much but I fancy them over Bangladesh & even 1 or 2 others.

 

[SeamUp]

Mominul Haque dismissed twice in the session. Other instances of that happening?

 

[Bahseph]

I don't think we saw Pato/Muthusamy contributing much.

Muthusamy left Durban to get more batting responsibility in Potch & it didn't really go as he wanted. Hence move to the Warriors. Saw him in the T20s getting mullered a few weeks back.

Pato bowling mid 120s probably has no future against the top teams but here we are.

Credit Conrad and his planning?

Conrad clearly has a method to his selections. Still think Paterson is about our 8th or 9th best seamer but he is the type of bowler who just runs in and lands it around 4th stump. Was perhaps meant to do the hard yards if a seamer needed to do that but his method has exposed some bad judgment outside off by the Bangladesh batters.

Muthusamy fancies himself as a batting allrounder I feel. I think he needs to buy into this role of being a 7 or 8 who bowls. Did start off opening for the Dolphins, but his true value lies in his allround game lower down IMHO. Leapfrogged Piedt with how he has gone so far?

 

[Bahseph]

It's sad. What is needed to take Bangladesh cricket forward?

Sri Lanka & Zimbabwe got consistently competitive far quicker. Afghanistan don't play as much but I fancy them over Bangladesh & even 1 or 2 others.

I'd like some of our Bangladeshi CWers to comment here but there is talent in this lineup. For the first time since I've watched them they have some decent pacers in Shoriful and Mahmud, a true quick in Rana and some good spinners. To me their batting just seems very technically flawed against high quality pace. I'm also not tuned into the politics of their selections but some times guys come in and look good then disappear. Also the lineup looks much better when there was Tamim, Das , Mahmadullah and Shakib in it.

 

[StephenZA]

Conrad clearly has a method to his selections. Still think Paterson is about our 8th or 9th best seamer but he is the type of bowler who just runs in and lands it around 4th stump. Was perhaps meant to do the hard yards if a seamer needed to do that but his method has exposed some bad judgment outside off by the Bangladesh batters.

Muthusamy fancies himself as a batting allrounder I feel. I think he needs to buy into this role of being a 7 or 8 who bowls. Did start off opening for the Dolphins, but his true value lies in his allround game lower down IMHO. Leapfrogged Piedt with how he has gone so far?

The problem Muthusamy has, as a selection for SA is the lack of variety with Maharaj also being left arm orthodox. Else he is a great team/squad selection for subcontinent. (And maybe Durban!).

 

[SeamUp]

Conrad clearly has a method to his selections. Still think Paterson is about our 8th or 9th best seamer but he is the type of bowler who just runs in and lands it around 4th stump. Was perhaps meant to do the hard yards if a seamer needed to do that but his method has exposed some bad judgment outside off by the Bangladesh batters.

Muthusamy fancies himself as a batting allrounder I feel. I think he needs to buy into this role of being a 7 or 8 who bowls. Did start off opening for the Dolphins, but his true value lies in his allround game lower down IMHO. Leapfrogged Piedt with how he has gone so far?

Has to be. Piedt had more assistance last game too.

But against good teams we could do with variety.

 

[Aritro]

It's sad. What is needed to take Bangladesh cricket forward?

Sri Lanka & Zimbabwe got consistently competitive far quicker. Afghanistan don't play as much but I fancy them over Bangladesh & even 1 or 2 others.

So there is no doubt that we are ****, but some points to consider:

We've beaten every test nation other than SAF and India and are actually following an arc that is not much worse than India and New Zealand over their first 25 years. South Africa arguably performed at minnow level for their first 40. Kimber did a good analysis of this recently on one of the podcasts.

Another thing that seems not to be widely understood is just how far behind other nations Bangladesh's starting point was. Until the late 90s, cricket was a niche sport played by our tiny middle class and fairly unknown to most of the population. It was a football country that suddenly had to build a cricketing culture, as well as infrastructure and a base of technical knowledge which previously didn't exist. Contrast this with Sri Lanka, who had all those things well and truly entrenched when they were admitted into international cricket.

We should have been given test status much later than 2000 and I personally think 2007 is a fairer starting point when evaluating Bangladeshi cricket.

Also, the final and most significant point is that until very recently, Bangladesh had levels of poverty that were unheard of even in our neighbouring nations in the subcontinent. This is relevant, because there is basically no single driver of a nation's sporting performance more significant than that nation's multidimensional development. This is evident any time you run your eye down an Olympic medal table, or when you consider that Belgium, with its population of 11 million, consistently produces better football teams than 200 million Nigerians.

And then there's the obvious cricketing example of New Zealand, population 5,000,000 quite often matching or significantly exceeding the performance of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

But of course there are notable exceptions to this rule and it should not be denied that we need to ****ing sort it out.

We've certainly been shown up by the improvement arc of Afghanistan. And in between those NZ and Pakistan wins, we have performed at a level that is not markedly better than our typical performances in the late 00s and early 10s and that is embarrassing.

Our recent wins home and away against New Zealand and last month's 2-0 win vs Pakistan at least provide some encouragement.

 

[Aritro]

I'd like some of our Bangladeshi CWers to comment here but there is talent in this lineup. For the first time since I've watched them they have some decent pacers in Shoriful and Mahmud, a true quick in Rana and some good spinners. To me their batting just seems very technically flawed against high quality pace. I'm also not tuned into the politics of their selections but some times guys come in and look good then disappear. Also the lineup looks much better when there was Tamim, Das , Mahmadullah and Shakib in it.

You've basically nailed it. We have bowlers with enough ability to turn into a genuinely high quality test standard attack, and it's been gratifying watching them improve. Hasan Mahmud and Shoriful are the pick of the pacers and have troubled high quality batsmen and I have faith we'll always have decent spinners.

Our batting stocks are as thin as they've been since the 2000s and the next few years will be absolutely grim. As you've noted their techniques against high quality pace are flawed, but lamentably, so are their techniques against high quality spin. Many of these players are simply batsmen of very, very limited ability.

I still have some faith in Joy given he's scored away centuries in both South Africa and New Zealand. He has a lot of work to do however. Hridoy is a skilful bat who has weirdly been denied selection in tests, so it's hard to say whether he'll make anything of himself in this format. The rest of them are a pile of ****.

 

[StephenZA]

The lack of fight from Bang is probably the thing I would find most frustrating. This just feels like absolute capitulation.

 

[Aritro]

The lack of fight from Bang is probably the thing I would find most frustrating. This just feels like absolute capitulation.

Yeah it's been pathetic. Despite some recent high points, they demonstrate no resilience when things go south and let their shoulders drop quickly. That has been my main criticism of Shanto's captaincy, which, to be fair, has produced significantly better results than Shakib's toxic reign.

 

[SeamUp]

So there is no doubt that we are ****, but some points to consider:

We've beaten every test nation other than SAF and India and are actually following an arc that is not much worse than India and New Zealand over their first 25 years. South Africa arguably performed at minnow level for their first 40. Kimber did a good analysis of this recently on one of the podcasts.

Another thing that seems not to be widely understood is just how far behind other nations Bangladesh's starting point was. Until the late 90s, cricket was a niche sport played by our tiny middle class and fairly unknown to most of the population. It was a football country that suddenly had to build a cricketing culture, as well as infrastructure and a base of technical knowledge which previously didn't exist. Contrast this with Sri Lanka, who had all those things well and truly entrenched when they were admitted into international cricket.

We should have been given test status much later than 2000 and I personally think 2007 is a fairer starting point when evaluating Bangladeshi cricket.

Also, the final and most significant point is that until very recently, Bangladesh had levels of poverty that were unheard of even in our neighbouring nations in the subcontinent. This is relevant, because there is basically no single driver of nation sporting performance more significant than that nation's multidimensional development. This is evident any time you run your eye down an Olympic medal table, or when you consider that Belgium, with its population of 11 million, consistently produces better football teams than 200 million Nigerians.

And then there's the obvious cricketing example of New Zealand, population 5,000,000 quite often matching or significantly exceeding the performance of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

But of course there are notable exceptions to this rule and it should not be denied that we need to ****ing sort it out.

We've certainly been shown up by the improvement arc of Afghanistan. And in between those NZ and Pakistan wins, we have performed at a level that is not markedly better than our typical performances in the late 00s and early 10s and that is embarrassing.

Our recent wins home and away against New Zealand and last month's 2-0 win vs Pakistan at least provide some encouragement.

Thank you for this.

I was watching an insert on Sri Lankan cricket and they still say certain sections of the island only now coming to terms with cricket still. I was thinking you were Bengali people like those in India that had some sort of background with cricket since their times

I do appreciate the poverty perspective and the facilities as we also have faced those issues. My view on this is, people who can help need to do their best and hopefully that comes from the government but cricket has always been a class game from the beginning so it was never going to be easy.

Has English coaching helped at all? Ive always noticed your one cricket commentator with a lovely Cambridge accent

It's so interesting as you look at our early years and we had basically a bunch of Englishmen who came to live here getting into our teams and it took time for those born and bred here to forge their way into the teams & be as good. So really unless you were an Afrikaaner who was anglicised then it was mainly English-speaking people from 4 Provinces (forgetting diamond rush Kimberley guys for a short while) & Rhodesia making the SA-team so I understand the gradual progression you speak of. But you don't get the full perspective looking from the outside in so that's why I asked.

 

[Chin Music]

I'm really confused about what all the recent results mean for test cricket apart from every side has obvious flaws. No rhyme nor reason to the absolute cluster**** results. I would have thought SA would have toiled against spin, but far from it. Bangladesh beat Pakistan, got stuffed royally by India, who themselves get stuffed by New Zealand on home soil, who had just had their backsides handed to them by Sri Lanka. No sense at all.

 

[SeamUp]

This is what I mean about Muthusamy for the last couple of years.