Bangladesh got test status after their good performance in the 1999 Cricket World Cup. They played their first test match against India at home in 2000. They have struggled to compete with the other teams and won their first test only in 2005 against Zimbabwe at home. The struggled in tests continued but they were slowly and surely becoming a good ODI side. They defeated India in the 2007 world cup and made it to the Super 8 stage where they defeated South Africa as well. But they weren’t able to build on their success in the 2007 world cup.
2011 world cup was held at home in Bangladesh and the expectations from their fans were pretty high. Bangladesh had recently defeated New Zealand 4-1 at home. They defeated England in the group stages but failed to reach the quarter finals. More often than not it is the batting that has let them down. They got bowled out for 58 and 78 which was the main reason for them crashing out in the group stages. While bowling has been better than batting for Bangladesh, they relied heavily on spinners, particularly left arm spinners to take wickets. Their pace bowlers in the past struggled to take wickets.
Of late they had had youngsters like Rubel Hossain and Taskin Ahmed who have done well for them, able to extract pace and trouble even the best batsmen in the world; both of these young bowlers have impressed one and all. Mashrafe Mortaza, Bangladesh’s most experienced pace bowler, has guided these youngsters and he himself has matured as a bowler, knows his limitations and bowls effectively in ODIs. The emergence of batsmen like Soumya Sarkar, Shabbir Rahman has helped Bangladesh post competitive totals.
Shakib Al Hasan was the lone warrior who used to consistently score runs with the bat as well as take crucial wickets in almost every game. He is without a doubt, the best all-rounder in world cricket right now. Senior batsmen like Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim have started playing responsibly as well. All these factors combined have made Bangladesh a force to be reckoned with in ODIs. Post the Cricket world cup 2011, they had defeated West Indies 3-2, New Zealand 3-0 and Zimbabwe 5-0 at home. Went to the cricket world cup as a force to be reckoned with and made it to the quarter finals after securing a memorable win against England. They also put up a good fight against India in the quarter finals.
Pakistan was under transition after the cricket world cup 2015 and toured Bangladesh under a new captain and a young team, Bangladesh pounced on them and inflicted a whitewash and won the ODI series 3-0. They also were able to defeat a full strength Indian team with stellar performance from debutant Mustafizur Rahman. Litton Das also impressed. The composition of the current Bangladesh bowling attack has changed drastically from the time when they had 3-4 left arm spinners in their playing XI, in the recent series vs India, Shakib Al Hasan was the sole spinner and they had 4 pace bowlers. Their upcoming ODI series with South Africa will be a very interesting one and it surely won’t be an upset if Bangladesh wins the series. I would go ahead and say that they start as favorites for the ODI series. The results in ODIs at home have been promising but there is a lot of scope for improvement in their ODI form outside Bangladesh.
Despite all these positive results the Bangladeshi team has a long way to go in test matches and they still fail to compete in most of the games. Hopefully the ODI success rubs off on them and their test team will also be able to ‘upset’ major teams in the years to come.
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