I strongly believe that with this playing eleven, Bangladesh can survive for 50 overs and can get at least over 180 runs, if not more. But the thing is that the batting order does not seem to be a sound one. Most Bengali and English dailies has reported that Mehrab Hossain and Mohammad Ashraful will open, and Tushar Imran will bat at number three. The new opening pair of Bangladesh suggests that there may be a chance of a run-out since they have not played with each other more often. Also, Mehrab Hossain is playing an International match after a long pause of nearly over a year. Mohammad Ashraful is also very young, and not as responsible as we would like him to be. Nevertheless, he had shown his intentions of becoming a responsible player in the last 2 matches of the world cup. Whether he can continue with the same kind of attitude, that is the question now. Tushar Imran has also shown his intetions against Kenya. Newspaper reports suggest that the one down position is to his liking and whether he can grab hold to this position that remains to be seen. Ofcourse, there are other players like Habibul Bashar and also Mohammad Ashraful who are strong contenders for this position.

Among most of the Bengali and English dailies, only one English newspaper has come up with the following middle order batting position - Alok Kapali to bat at four, Akram Khan to bat at five and Sanwar Hossain to bat at six. This is a cause of a concern for me, and if these three players can prove me wrong, then I would be delighted. But this is why there is the need for the existence of statistics and the requirement for taking a close look at the statistics.

In the recent past, Alok Kapali's batting abilities have been over-estimated a little too much. Although it has been a while since he has batted at number four position - to be precise, it was his debut match and in his second match for Bangladesh when he was played at number four position, still a promotion for him at the batting order has not been a good showing. He has performed much better at number six or seven; but he has gone nowhere close to those scores while batting up the order at four or five. In fact, if one looks at Bangladesh's two lowest totals in the last one year, then he would notice it that Alok Kapali had batted at number four at one occassion and at number five the second time. It is true that it was not his fault that Bangladesh failed miserably in those two games, but it suggests something that should not be done as soon as only in one years time.

The best score of Kapali at number five is 18 runs off 41 balls in the match against Kenya. Also, his highest score of 89 not out was against West Indies when his batting position was at number six. Besides, this is the batting position that he likes to bat. He said so himself.

His batting technique might have forced the team management or the selection committee whoever it is that is responsible for changing the batting order this time around, but they would also have to look at this fact that Kapali used to be a lower order batsman in the domestic cricket of Bangladesh and also he has never batted as a specialist batsman in middle order like at four or five. His batting technique is so good, that he is good enough to open an innings for Bangladesh, but does that mean that he must open also? That should certainly not be the case as we have already seen what opening an innings has already done to a middle order batsman like Al Shahriar.

We should not destroy Kapali's International career by forcing him to do what he is simply not capable of.

Besides, history also suggest that it takes a few years for an allrounder to become a specialist batsman. Why even Aminul Islam and Akram Khan used to be
all rounders for Bangladesh - one an off-spinner-allrounder and another a medium-pacer-allrounder. And now look at them - both are now recognized as
specialist batsman. And it took them a long time to get promoted in the batting order at four and five. They used to bat from number six to number eight position in their debut season. It was after two years (from 1988 to 1990) that Akram Khan was promoted at number four. But even at that time Akram Khan was not hugely successfuly. It was not until the year 1995 that both of them could get accustomed to their batting position of number four and number six. Even after that they were not the most consistent, but they were more consistent than other batsman.

The point being, if players like Aminul Islam and Akram Khan needed so much time to get hold of their positions, then how come somebody like Alok Kapali can do the same thing in a very short time? And it is not that we are short of specialist middle order batsman, we have the great Akram Khan himself in the squad, who I believe should be batting at number four, and then there is Khaled Mashud who is the most experienced player of Bangladesh, who I believe should bat at number five - at least in the one day matches. And since Sanwar Hossain has not yet scored too much, so he should be given the responsibility to bowl only and to try to save the faces of top and middle order batsman if there is a big collapse. That is what Sanwar is capable of, and he has shown it on quite a number of occassions in tour matches. All he has to do is think of the International matches as those tour matches and show what he is capable of.

I am sure in that case, we might lose someone dependable like Khaled Mashud in the lower middle order to save Bangladesh's face countless times so far, but we would rather like to see some fightback when we are 3 wickets down when there is some chance of getting a respectable total of around 180 to 200 rather than with 5 wickets down when the only 'fightback' is either to get past the 'respectable' total of 100 run mark or to get past our lowest score ever in One Day Internationals.

Best viewed with 800x640/Internet Explorer resolution