[fwullah]

I think one thing is not mentioned here at all.

THE FACTOR OF THE NEW BALL.

Bulbul, Akram, Nannu, Durjoy - they all played at number four, five, six and sometimes at seven. Only a few times (2/3 times) Akram and Durjoy were tried at number three or in the opening position and they failed miserably, considering their batting average and the number of times played at their respected batting positions.

Since we are having to face a similar kind of situation now just as before, the opening dilemma - THE NEW BALL FACTOR, (that is, wickets fall too regularly in the first few overs) so our aim could be to strengthen our middle order batting. And hence, stop losing the matches inside the first 10 overs of our batting.

In that case, Bashar, Rajin, Ashraful - the three main inform spearheads in our batting in present times can be batted at positions three, four and five. Given that Alok Kapali is not in such a good form, so lets just forget about him for the moment. The Bashar-Rajin-Ashraful batting line up helped us in the One Day series against Zimbabwe, so we could have stayed with the same batting order for the rest of the season.

However, as we are trying to get our acts together and trying to beat teams stronger than Zimbabwe, so the risk of entertaining the idea of Ashraful opening came into the mind of Whatmore, for our sake of winning against stronger teams like SL, IND, PAK, so Whatmore took a chance, a risk, and since there is no risk, no gain, so he was encouraged by the idea.

Anyway, am I making sense? There are the facts given by Atahar Ali Khan, the only opener (a makeshift opener, to be precise - just like Mohammad Ashraful) in our recent past who have succeeded in the International career and ofcourse there is Javed Omar, who have shown some success in International career.

I think my ideas are all messed up at the moment. If at least any one of you has come to understand as to what I meant, then my time on this long-messed-up post is worth it.