12th February 2003, the day after the world cup opener for Bangladesh against Canada. The Bangladeshis do not have to cry, the skies of Dhaka are crying for the millions of cricket fans of Bangladesh. The reason? The biggest upset of the World Cup 2003, South Africa - Bangladesh lost to Canada and not only by some 20 to 30 runs, by a huge margin of 60 runs.

It seems that Bangladesh has now truly becoming the most consistent team of the world cup. The Bangladeshis can not only lose to Australia - the present world cup champions along with the rest of the test playing nations, but also to the 3rd placed team of the ICC associate nations - Canada.

And also for once, Bangladeshi bowlers, fielders, as well as the batsman performed poorly. Recent history suggests that when Bangladeshi cricketers bat well, they bowl and field poorly and when Bangladesh bowls and fields well, they bat poorly. At least this was not the case for Bangladesh in the world cup opener - does not matter how good the statistics and figures of Bangladeshi bowlers and fielders suggest.

Previously, whenever the top and middle order of Bangladesh have failed to perform, Alok Kapali and Khaled Mashud along with the rest of the lower and lower middle order batsman have rescued Bangladesh a thousand times. But how many times can anybody expect them to rescue the top and middle order batsman from a straight hell?

Nobody from the top 5 batsman has really played a responsible and a patient knock. In fact, the only things that were missing from Bangladeshi bowling was line and length and from Bangladeshi batting was patience, temperament etc.

Before the game started, the print media published stories on MohammadAshraful saying that according to the team management, Ashraful has some "ZUZU" in his head that he is saying that he does not have, but that his actions suggest otherwise. Now it seems that the team management had imagined such "ZUZU" in Ashraful's mind is existing in the minds of the eleven batsman that had played in the match against Canada. Which means that it is exisiting not only in Ashraful's mind, but in the minds of all the Bangladeshi national cricketers.

All the mistakes that the Bangladeshi batsman, bowlers, fielders have made in the past against all the test playing nations, they did the same mistakes, because of the same technical flaws, that Bangladesh lost to Canada.

Personally I would be really surprised if the batting line up of Bangladesh in the next match has the following players in the side - Habibul Bashar and especially Al Shahriar. We can all understand that Habibul Bashar is going through a really bad patch. But what is of Al Shahriar? Will he be scoring runs only when his place in the side is in doubt and will continue to score ducks and under ten runs as long as he plays for Bangladesh? I would also be surprised to see if Khaled Mashud comes to bat at the same seventh batting position after Kapali. Everybody has been telling Mashud that he should come up the order, but he never really listened to the experts. Now the
whole team is paying the price by losing to Canada by such a big margin.

In a letter to Khaled Mashud - the Bangladesh captain, I would like to say to all of you on behalf of all Bangladeshis is that you do not have to quit after the world cup, you will be automatically fired when you come back to Bangladesh. And want to know our immediate reaction after the match? It is this - Come back to Banladesh and forefeit the rest of the world cup. Let the Bangladesh Cricket Board not worry about the financial burden that they would have to carry. You and your men can certainly pay whatever the amount that comes aspunishment for forefeiting the world cup matches against Sri Lanka, West Indies, South Africa, New Zealand and Kenya. After all, if England and New Zealand can forefeit their matches in Zimbabwe and in Kenya, then why can't you?

Now the question is, how far down can the Bangladesh team go from here? May be Zimbabwe's lowest ever score of 38 all out vs Sri Lanka in a One Day International? Well we, the fans have plenty of reasons to believe that it could well be the case.

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