Just an opinion: Identifying quality from form

[safaat]

The NCL this season has produced some fine performances (as would any league would have). These performances will naturally make the selectors sit up and notice. One or two players may receive a cap to the national team. Deservingly. You play well, you will get a chance in the team. However such performances have been produced even before. Faisal Hussein had a great season last year. That enabled him to get into the team. However he never really lived up to his expectations. This season he has again got of to a good start. 2 fifties in four innings and an average of 91 may again make the selectors feel that he should be given another chance. But the question is that does he really deserve one?

Bangladesh cricket is still very much in it developing stages and needs as many players as they can to come forward and perform at the international stage. They can't afford to be choosy about players. Whoever shows a glimmer of good performance, he will be tested at the international level. That had happened with so many current national players. Ashraful who came into the team due to his strokeplay and initial patchy success, more at under17 and 19 level then first class, has still got to really start making big teams sweat consistently. He has been playing for four years at the international stage and only off late has shown glimpses of coming of age. (only glimpses). He did not have a complete season of NCL matches before he was selected into the team. Probably he should have played two or three seasons of FC cricket before he stepped in the national team. That would have meant that he would have learnt about his strengths and weaknesses as a batsman. He would have also learnt how to built long innings. Perhaps then we may have seen a more consistent and mature Ashraful by today. Alok Kapali who came into the team and was playing only his second first class game when he made his debut against Srilanka. Again Mohsin Khan (coach of team at that time) thougt he was technically fit as a batsman to come into the team. He may have been better of playing more league cricket to learn top level batting ( he was selected as a bowler so he really didn't know that he had the ability to be a top order test batsman). Hannan Sarkar was also a product of under 17 and 19 performances rather than first class performances. He too is a very talented opener. It took Tushar only one double hundred to make it to the team. All these batsmen talented enough to be internationally respectable figures. All these guys had one thing in common. All lacked first class level experience.

One the other hand Rajin Saleh who had some first class experience (as he played 20 first class games before playing Pakistan) has been pretty much successful and also consistent. He was going through a bad patch but came back to form in the last ODI against India. He is perhaps the best example of a talented batsman groomed properly before making it to the international stage. He also had a first class average of 40 when he made his debut. This means that he was also performing. Probably the best example of how to bring a player into the national team not only with experience but also with youth.


However not all players are like Rajin Saleh also. There are players who score heavily at the domestic level but don't score at the international level. Faisal Hussian is one of them. He has been scoring consistently at domestic level but his stint at international level didn't show any signs of him being international quality. I hope I am proved wrong but what ever he displayed on the field really promises little of him being successful at international level no matter how much he scores at first class level.

What I am trying to say is that selectors have to be patient and choosy about players. Not only batsmen but also bowlers. Patient because they can't just throw any raw talent into international cricket. If they do spot any talent let groom them let them play first class cricket and then when they are mature enough bring them onto international level. Choosy because statistics don't always show the right picture. They need to be able to segregate between world class players and in form domestic level players. It is tough but then that is a job of the selectors.

This season already a few players have made an impact. Khaled Mahmud, former captain has scored his first century this season. But does that really mean he is international quality. If I am honest to my self then I would say no. Mehrab Hussain has also shown some form this season. 98 backed up with a hundred. He is one who we know has class. Ehsanul Haque, Sunny, Nazimuddin have also made hundreds. Not only hundreds. Big hundreds. But the one who has made the biggest impact is Shahin Hussain. 2 hundreds and 3 fifties in six innings. Not only has he been the highest run getter this season but also scored them under pressure and for the weakest team of the league. Even he does not keep wickets he may just play as a batsman. But is he really international quality? Can't know until he is tested. But is it the right time to let him play test cricket? Does he need more time? Is 3 good matches enough to bring him to international level?

The A team has just finished a tour to Zimbabwe A. a few players showed their ability. But most of them are young. Most of them inexperienced. And thus the likes of Shahriar Nafees, Mushfiqur Rahim, Raqibul Hassan all need to play regular first class cricket for two to three years before they are selected to the national team. I would definilty not let these guys have a feel of international cricket. Just let these guys play FC cricket and let them learn about their own game. As for the selectors, they should concentrate more on the successful domestic players rather than these A team players. After all they do have a tough job identifying world class players from inform domestic level players.

[Sham]

Excellent piece! Couldn't agree more about the need to give players sufficient first class experience before thrusting them onto Test cricket. Unfortunately, we haven't done that in the past. We have instead gone the Pakistan way of picking talented youngsters as soon as they are uncovered. Has not worked for Pakistan (they have had a few good hits but the ratio of that to the number of players who were brought in, couldn't live up to expectation and never played for Pakistan again is too great to want to replicate the style) and it won't work for Bangladesh! You are absolutely right, the young players like Raquibul and Saquibul should be put through several years of FC cricket and A tours before they are considered for the national team. Just look at Australia, players usually play a good 6-7 years of FC cricket before they are considered and hardly anyone under the age of 23 gets into the Aussie team !

Also, you are absolutely right when you say 'they (selectors) need to be able to segregate between world class players and in-form domestic level players.' Because of the batting friendliness of our pitches and the lack of quality bowlers on the domestic circuit (most of the ones we have are on tour), the in-form batsmen in any team can hit a few hundreds and average in the 50s and 60s. That doesn't make them Test class batsmen. Meanwhile, someone who doesn't rank in the top ten in terms of the number of runs scored in the season might be world class. Just look at Habibul Bashar, not a prolific scorer in domestic cricket but a performer in international cricket.



Edited on, March 1, 2005, 10:41 PM GMT, by Sham.

[RazabQ]

To add to that, I wonder if the BCB insists on every FC match getting video-taped. Selectors can't make it to every match, but with the tapes, the gang of four (Faruk, Atahar, Prince & Whatmore) can start with a pool of top run getters and then weed out the ones with visually poor techniques. Then you call up the coaches, captains, managers and ask for insights into the player's mindset - is he mature? Is he 'changra". Then you make the call.

[Sham]

I think its more important for selectors to actually go around and watch the games themselves. That is what the English selectors do with county cricket, whenever there is a match which features a potential England player, one of the selectors go around to watch it. Its difficult to do it in England with so many teams and matches, but in our country, it can't be all that hard.

Between the three permanent selectors, if they even watch half of the FC games, they will get a pretty good idea about each and every player. As there are 10 rounds of 3 games each this season so there are 30 games in total. If each selector watches 5 games from start to finish in the whole season (a game every alternate week), between the three of them, they will have watched 15 games. If they watch six games each, they can each watch every team twice! Thats the way to do it, get out there and watch the match, get a feel of the conditions, the kind of pressure the player/team is in, etc.

The problem with video is that even if they send a video camera and cameraman around to each stadium, it will probably be of poor quality and poor camera work, unless they want to hire professional cricket cameramen from the networks. Also, some things like the ones I mentioned above, conditions, state of the pitch etc are not easy to determine on video!

[babubangla]

Safat
Out of this 6 players---Faisal, Shahin Ahmed, Mehrab Jr., Ehsanul Haq, Najimuddin, Arafat Sunny----did you see all those player's batting? I have not seen any of them.

Your analysis is very good indeed.

Edited on, March 2, 2005, 1:07 AM GMT, by babubangla.

[bourny3]

Great analysis.

[Hasib]

welcome to the board Safaat.

[AsifTheManRahman]

i wouldn't blame the selectors for choosing the pakistani path in selecting players in the past. if you look at it - it is very recently that we have started playing regularly. even a couple of years ago, we used to play 3/4 matches every 2/3 years. when making an impression from limited opportunities is the key, dropping a good number of players after every game or two is very natural. another thing is that our selectors were also new to the international scene, and they also had very limited choices.

however, the scene has changed recently, especially over the last couple of months. the selectors are now more patient and cautious about pushing anyone into the national team. we have age group, A and bcb XI teams, and a guy like dhiman will not be thrown in unless he proves his worth at the intermediate levels. similarly, a guy like aftab will not be thrown out even after successive failures. we are indeed better than pakistan now (in terms of planning, not cricketing standards: auto-decipher).

watching the game has always been a good idea. however, that's somewhere that our selectors lack (or do they? any info would be appreciated).

talking about video taping, i just remembered that it would be awesome if the NCL could be broadcasted on tv - to grow its popularity.

[fwullah]

if the NCL could be broadcasted on tv - to grow its popularity.

I remember that around the year 2000, I read it somewhere that some broadcasting company's head said something about showing the Dhaka premier league live on tv (not on BTV, on cable tv), as many foreign players come to play there including Ranatunga, Wasim Akram etc.

I don't know what happened afterwards.

[IanW]

Bangladesh players need to play more first-class cricket.

The 2 games in the Duleep trophy are a good start .

For comparison, see the number of first-class games played by Tasmanian cricketers, and compare it with their age-equivalents in Bangladesh.

Ian Whitchurch

[Ahmed_B]

Nice Write-up safaat. Good observations. There is one question still to be asked though... about the standard of our Domestic Leagues. Yes we need to groom our players sufficietnly before we bring them to the International stage.. but perhaps our domestic format isn't strong enough to support them in that way. This is probably the reason that even after having 3/4 good domestic leagues, our youngstars fail in the Int.l stage in initial matches... and then they finish the learning process thru playing the Int'l matches itself.

Anyway.. in a thread about newcomers, I had posted a reply which is somewhat related to this topic. Re-posting it here...
_____________________________________________

"Young-Stars: The Growing Spine of Bangladesh Cricket"

Lets take a step back and look at the current team from a distance... lets take a look at their very recent history. I do not think the track is very unreadable..

#_After Dav joined as BD coach.. the first thing he tried to do... was to bring discipline and confidence into the already existing players in the country/team.
#_After a few initial successes on that.. some of the players started to underperform.. putting the selectors to think deep.
#_Then the coach/board started to experiment with selection.. giving lots of chances to a good number of youngstars.
#_Appriciably enough, the BKSP itself and the system of HP squad adopted by BCB enhanced regular supply of junior players who could be tested in International arena.
#_Then came younger debutants, one after another into the team and with only few successes, most of them proved to be collaps-materials for the big show.
#_This experiment with younger potentials made discoveries of some very talented and potential young hands-who could ultimately adopt to the big games.. while it also raised a very important question: How far should we push our youngstars into the Int' show before preparing them properly?
#_Fortunately enough... by this time, a combination of Seniors & Juniors started to grow and gain consistancy upto a good level.. and even more fortunately for us, BCB decided (only very recently) to restrain limitless changes & shuffles and started to stick to their short core of players with only very minor changes series-to-series..

Result? Well.. the team has started to develope consistancy, adoptibility, understanding and a very high team spirit and winning spree! This solid core of current players only has started to develope as a strong team (only in initial stage) and they really need far more time to develope themselves as UNBEATABLE combination..
On the other hand... every younger potentials really need to be seasoned more n more on the INTERMEDIATE (between Domestic & International) level and grow up as very dependable hands for the future of our team.

Current set of highly performing seniors (Eg. Rafiq/Pilot/Tapash/even Bashar) will retire sooner or later... and we do need replacements of them and we need to prepare those replacement talents from this very moment!

:duh:If a younger promising player is doing very good at his level, but yet it is not exactly the right time to put him in right onto the frypan.. then why must we think that he is being misjudged or deprived?? This is only the beginning of BD cricket and we have long long way to go.. and we need all these young guns for ever!!

Lets stop being abrupt and arbitrary and develop a very consistent system to process our younger talents and take their services for the longest possible period of time.. not just use them for a few matches and then through them away like useless trash.

[couger]

I think someone with a prolonged period of good form can be called a quality player.