Natural Game leads to natural death.

[Akib]

I'd rather he does not play his natural game. I think its this thats lead us to where we are today.

[Beamer]

Originally Posted by billah
Good point, Beamer.

Yet, I can't help but thinking: Captaincy taken away from Ash, after dismal performance, before the tour of West Indies.....

I think we are as close as we ever can be to a Test double hundred by a Bangladeshi Batsman.

That will be great. Hope your hunch is right. My candidate, if that happens, is Tamim Iqbal. His batting is more West Indian than any other in our team. Why not him in West Indies? But, he must take what is given.

[abu2abu]

"Natural game" is a bit of a nonsense - how can it be any batsman's "natural game" to get out?

[Beamer]

BANFAN

Coaching in cricket is a recent novelty. Go back before '90s and you would hardy see a team with a full time coach. I don't think Viv Richards, Allan Border, Sunil Gavaskar, Miandad etc were coached during their times. They played, learned and applied as their career moved on. In these days of year round cricket, video analysis and what not, the coach serves more as a man manager and the game planner, since there is much less time for the captain to monitor and decide every little matter. I think our problem starts and ends with our lack of quality domestic set-up. If a national team coach is telling a player how to hold a bat, or what shot not to play, I think we are in big trouble, which we are in at this point.

[Kabir]

Originally Posted by Beamer
That will be great. Hope your hunch is right. My candidate, if that happens, is Tamim Iqbal. His batting is more West Indian than any other in our team. Why not him in West Indies? But, he must take what is given.

Far from it. Tamim doesn't have the mental stamina to remain in the middle for more than half a day. He won't last longer than that.

[Beamer]

Is it wrong to hope? I think he will do well.

[Sohel]

Originally Posted by Beamer
I want to know what the heck is "natural game"? We have all heard it from time to time in post match interviews, being parroted mercilessly by our players. Win or lose, after every game, the reason for success was "natural game" and the reason for failure was the inability to play "natural game".

Good read bro and thank you for it. Like you, I don't know what "natural game" is either. Not even hazy ideas here. But looking at frequency alone, I can safely observe that certain things are "quite" natural to all involved with our cricket on different levels.

1) For batsmen: inexplicably throwing their wickets away after looking relatively set and comfortable, and rare good performances mitigated by steady inconsistency.

2) For bowlers: an otherwise good over ruined by an errant delivery or two, and an otherwise good spell ruined by ordinary bowling during key overs.

3) For management: love of jodi laigga jay and whimsical scapegoating.

4) For fans: naturally coming back for more.

[Kabir]

Originally Posted by Beamer
Is it wrong to hope? I think he will do well.

Nothing wrong. But lets be realistic.

I don't want him to fail. I'll be jumping down the street naked if he scores a double-ton. But given his maturity, I don't see it coming in the near future. I'ld love to be proven wrong, and would love the naked dancing in the street.

[Beamer]

Originally Posted by Kabir
Nothing wrong. But lets be realistic.

I don't want him to fail. I'll be jumping down the street naked if he scores a double-ton. But given his maturity, I don't see it coming in the near future. I'ld love to be proven wrong, and would love the naked dancing in the street.

Oh No..Save humanity. Wonder what you will do if he scores a triple?

[Murad]

Tamim doesn't like takings singles and running. He always believe in bounderies that his main problem. That's the reason he is getting too many Run-Outs these days.

If he concentrate on singles, he will become a good batsman.

[Kabir]

Originally Posted by Beamer
Oh No..Save humanity. Wonder what you will do if he scores a triple?

Then I'll take you with me...and we'll both dance on the street naked!

[BANFAN]

Beamer, you are somewhat right when you explain JO/Rajin's inability to punish a ball what Tamim/Aftab will. This isn't unique in BD team only, it's there in every team. Like Laxman/Dravid will probably not be able to punish a ball that Y.Pathan or Shehwag will. Take Bopara/Petersen to Collingwood, Take Bravo/Gayle to Chanderpaul/Sarwn, Ponting/Clarke to Hussey/Symonds etc etc to mention a few. This has a lot to do with the physio dynamics of a person, which are not limited to reflexes, strength, sighting ability etc qualities influence a player to play in a certain way since went out with a bat/ball in the play ground. Over a period of time that person gets developed as a player and he learns to avoid his limitations and exploit his strengths and forms a natural pathern of batting/bowling. It is hard to challenge your limitations at a matured age, hence the importance of natural abilities comes in. But a player can perfect his natural abilities through practice and become a good player when he plays to his strengths. We cannot deny such natural abilities being formed when we depend on nature rathaer than scientific process to produce players for us. More over human beings differ genetically; that's why we see people with different athletic abilities; or else a marathon runner could have won 100 m sprint with much lesser effort than he puts in a marathon; wouldn't he try that? But he can't because of his natural inability to do that; so thenatural ability is an undenyable truth. I have only focussed on physiodynamics, but natural abilities are also in other areas of human abilities as well.

Some of the limitations one has, probably could be improved (Not eliminated) through systematic procedures, like focussed exercises to improve reflexes, muscles, neuromuscular coordination during different types of shots etc. But that needs to be done in very early age; here comes the question of infrastructure. If a young player in his early teens gets all the facilities like Gym, physio, coaches etc to help him identify his deficiencies and make him go though the procedures for improvement, he might be able to improve noticeably. We lack considerably in this infrastructral side in comparison to our G8 counterparts. Genetically also we are in a disadvantegious position than most of them. Due to these, we need to have a very good infratructure for sports in general and try to focus at a much earlier age to pick up tallents and grooming them as a complete player under able coach/trainers.

The players we have in the national team ATM, are tallented and are able to play to their strengths, but since they didn't get an opportunity to focus on their physio dynamic limitations at an early age, they have noticeable weaknesses in cricketing skills as well, hence is the importance of a coach. A coach in Aus team don't have to do certain things as they are more or less refined through a system from very early age. But in BD team a coach has to take care of improving those deficiencies of our players which may not be holding bat but the entire dynamics of the game at this level. Improve some very basic skills to make him comfortable and confiodent in situations which he always thought to be his limitations.

Compare a cricker's skill and physio dynamics of a BD player in 80s and today at any level, there are major changes in everything. This change has occured due to infrastructural abundance in relation to what it was before. As we progress I'm sure the coaches at school or elementary levels will be much more efficient and knowledge of athleticism/facilities like gyms/bowling machines/indoors etc will be much more accessible by the aspiring boys. That will some day take us to a level, when a coach will not have to do what we expect them to do today.

Meanwhile exceptionally tallented, naturally athletic boys will come up from time to time, to be Miandad/Viv etc. They come once in a while & we can't keep waiting for them to come some day, we have to have system to produce players with versatile natural abilities, that others have been able to do. So let's have patience and focus on having a better infrastructure (That involves good facilities, Abundance of capable coaches, tallent spotting and scientific finishing academies etc) in the right places, we won't have todays problem. Till then to keep us afloat, we depend a bit extra on a foreign coach who is likely to have the knowledge & skills to improve these boys even at the national level. Some day, we will not need then to do these things and they will fit perfectly into todays role of a coach in other G8 Nations. 10 years isn't enough to achieve that.

[Beamer]

Well put BANFAN. Very well put.

[WarWolf]

100% of natural anything is not acceptable in the civilized world. Naturally we are born without clothes. Naturally we are greedy and lusty. It's the society and education which teach us to be human by polishing us.

The problem with our team is their nature. They are lack the touch of being polished which turns a young talented player to a matured successful player.

[Zeeshan]

Time for a bump. I am gonna go on a diatribe here...

Nothing is more annoying and fatal than putting someone in cookie cutter's mold. Institutionalized administrations already has done it's fair share of debilitating damage of sapping the creativity right out of a child's fertile mind and we dont need any more of that in our cricket.

Everything has it's time and place. Ashraful has gone through soo much discipline that he has lost his natural shtick. Most people make the cardinal delusional mistake of attributing natural game as harakiri dangerous aggressive reckless shots. Wrong! It has nothing to do with that. When you are playing naturally your subconscious which is capable of parallel processing and manipulating tenfold of information takes over and you play instinctively from intuition from muscle memory.

Whether it be aikido ro tennis they teach you discipline but also gives a caveat of not to THINK too much during the actual fight or the game. For instance, in aikido they teach you not to back off during an opponents attack and burn down lateral movement in your brain while in tennis they teach you the perfect shot like forehand and backhand. But, during the actual match they know you are bound to make mistakes and at the post-disciplinary stage it's okay to make "mistakes" like back off or play sloppy shots. The purpose at the time is not to please the friggin coach or the purists with some text book shots but to friggin... WIN! That's what it actually matters and nothing more.

In martial arts you enter with beginner's mind of zen with white belt and pass on to black belt eventually and in the philosophy you revert back to white belt. Similarly, when Ash started he had this flamboyant penchant of playing his game of natural flair. That has been destroyed to the smithereens by some immense military regimental training in the nets of putting his square skills in round peg. We can currently see this when his SR has been brought down drastically. It's not a question of 'good' or 'bad' thing but since cricket is a lifelong journey he still needs to go to the next stage of playing right from the gut as if there is no tomorrow.

Edit: Also cricket IS a natural game after all. It's not a friggin intellectual exercise for the tools to be solved by equations in the blackboard in terms of arctans and cosines; rather a beautiful game to be played right from the heart. Intuition, whole brain synchrony, fire in the heart, hope, positive approach has a lot more to do with natural game than some rash strokes.

merked.