Home ›› 31 Jan 2022 ›› Sport
Former Bangladesh cricketer and age-group selector, Hasibul Hossain, thinks that the main reason behind the Bangladesh Under-19 cricket team’s poor show at the ICC U-19 World Cup 2022 was the lack of temperament among key batsmen.
Hasibul, who travelled with the team that won the World Cup in 2020 in South Africa defeating India in a tense final, was not happy to see the next layer of young cricketers crumbling against India’s bowling at Coolidge, Antigua on Saturday.
Bangladesh U-19 captain Rakibul Hasan said that the batsmen could have done better.
“The batsmen should have taken more time. If they took more time and did not give away that many wickets, it could have been easier for us. That is the mistake we made,” Rakibul said in the presentation ceremony.
Rakibul was a member of the team that won the trophy two years ago, and Hasibul observed that team from close quarters as a travelling selector. The former Bangladesh pacer thinks that the batsmen from this batch are not battle-hardened like their previous batch, who lifted the trophy.
“I am not saying that the batting is bad this time, but before the previous U-19 World Cup, the boys had played a good number of matches which these boys could not due to the Covid situation. That’s why they lacked match experience,” he told The Business Post.
“Due to Covid infection, sometimes our practice camp also halted midway, which hampered the preparation,” he added.
Bangladesh U-19 played a five-match youth one-day series against Afghanistan at home, which they won 3-2. The series was very low-scoring as the batsmen struggled to score runs. The highest team total of the five-match series was only 222-6 by Bangladesh, with only four 50+ innings in the whole series.
The next destination for the young Tigers was Sri Lanka, where they played five youth ODIs and lost all. That was another low-scoring series as none of the teams could not surpass 250 runs.
The highest team total was 240, posted by Sri Lanka, and in reply, Bangladesh stopped at 236. Only Aich Mollah and Mahfizul Islam scored half-centuries on two occasions.
After an unsuccessful Sri Lanka tour, Rakibul and Tanzim Hasan Sakib were brought back to the U-19 team as both were eligible to play in the 2022 edition, though they were part of the winning team in 2020.
The U-19 team then left for Kolkata to play a triangular series against India U-19 A and India U-19 B at Eden Gardens, Bangladesh won the trophy, but India got the better preparation.
In the U-19 Asia Cup, Bangladesh won against Nepal and Kuwait and survived against Sri Lanka as the game was postponed due to an umpire being found Covid-19 positive. In the semi-final, Bangladesh lost to India by 103 runs.
In the opening match of the U-19 World Cup, Bangladesh were all-out for only 97 runs. The junior Tigers could not handle Joshua Boyden, who took four wickets. In their next two matches, against UAE and Canada, their batting strength was not tested as they were chasing small totals. But against India in the quarterfinals, their weakness was exposed once again.
“We could not do well against strong teams. Our leading batsmen could not show the big match temperament. Maybe they got nervous and faltered,” said Hasibul.
He also feels that these players are a little weaker in batting.
“In our previous batch, the batting was strong. It went deep down the order. But this time, the batting is a bit weak. Maybe that’s why we could not show temperament in big matches,” he added.
Mehrab Hossain was appointed as the batting coach of the U-19 team, and Talha Jubair was appointed as the bowling coach of the U-19 team in August 2020. Though the bowling skill improved significantly, batting remains a concern.
“In the previous World Cup, we did not have any specialist batting coach. I was shocked to see Fahim playing that reverse sweep. I think the batting order was not correct. Meherob batted too late,” said Hasibul.
“But overall, this time our bowling was stronger than batting,” added the age-group selector.
