There is a crisis in Bangladesh, and tough decisions need to be taken to reach a long-term solution

Mohammad Isam19-Nov-2024As the world raves about Harry Brook, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kamindu Mendis and Rachin Ravindra, it’s fair to wonder if any young, emerging talent in Bangladesh can be mentioned in the same breath. A few promising batters have broken through to the national team over the last several years, but none of them has put up the consistent numbers that would put him in a list such as that.As a result, Bangladesh are still dependent on three batters who are far from young. Mushfiqur Rahim is now in his 19th season as a Test cricketer. Mominul Haque and Litton Das are of more recent vintage, but are both in their 30s now. Among the slightly younger lot, Najmul Hossain Shanto has hit a rough patch after showing promise last year, while Mehidy Hasan Miraz, an allrounder, is widely regarded as the team’s most improved batter.The scariest part is that there hasn’t even been a false dawn. No one has looked the part, the sort that would hold down one position for a length of time.Related

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As for the immediate future, the selectors have picked Shahadat Hossain and Mahidul Islam Ankon as replacements for the injured Mushfiqur and Shanto, who are out of the Test series against West Indies that begins on Friday. Shahadat is making a comeback after failing to impress in his first four Tests, while Mahidul, who made his debut against South Africa last month, is the third-choice wicketkeeper and a back-up batter.Slim pickings then.The 26-year-old Shanto is the best of the younger batters.After making his debut in 2017, it took him four years to find a regular spot in the team. Even then, it was only in 2023 that he found a regular spot in the Test side. He has the ability to score all around the wicket, with his punches and drives through the off side the main barometers of his confidence and rhythm.But just when he was establishing himself, the BCB decided to reward him. They made Shanto Bangladesh’s Test captain in November 2023. He started well with a century in the Test win against New Zealand in Sylhet, but it has been downhill from that point. After enjoying his best year as a batter in 2023, scoring three hundreds and averaging in the 50s, his form nosedived: this year, he has scored 317 runs at 21.13, with just the one fifty in 15 innings.The situation came to a head when, in the middle of the South Africa series last month, Shanto informed the BCB that he wanted to quit the captaincy. The BCB convinced him to continue in the role, and he was named captain for the Afghanistan ODIs and the West Indies Tests.Has captaincy played a role in Najmul Hossain Shanto’s dwindling returns?•Associated PressOne reason for Shanto’s struggles is the batting around him. Shadman Islam, Mahmudul Hasan Joy and Zakir Hasan have occupied the two opening slots this year, and Shadman (23.09) is the only one of them to average above 20. These three will now form Bangladesh’s top three in the West Indies with Shanto out injured.Joy, who recently turned 24, began his career promisingly, with runs in New Zealand and South Africa, but has blown hot and cold ever since, proving to be a nervous starter.Zakir struck a debut Test century against India two years ago, but hasn’t done much since.Shadman is the oldest of the trio, and made a strong comeback to the side with a 93 in Pakistan and a half-century in India, but has had issues against the short ball and struggled in the home series against South Africa.Among the other batters who made their Test debuts after the pandemic, Yasir Ali made a promising start before being dropped on the basis of white-ball performances. Mohammad Naim has played only one Test, while the jury is still out on whether Shahadat can deliver on his Under-19 promise.Bangladesh’s batting coach David Hemp initially joined the BCB as the head coach of their high-performance unit in 2023. He worked with several young batters including Joy, Shahadat, Shamim Hossain and Tanzid Hasan.Mahmudul Hasan Joy looks good when he gets going, but he can be a nervous starter•PCB”I believe that there are several challenges which may include higher skill level in bowling with greater consistency in execution, therefore greater pressure for longer periods of time,” Hemp said about the Bangladesh batters’ struggle when moving up to the highest level. “Certain surfaces but in particular those with pace and bounce [trouble them more]. Managing bowlers with pace like 145-150kph will always be a challenge but if you are not facing that too often in domestic cricket then it can take time to adjust.”National squad selection is a fantastic moment but with that selection comes greater attention and expectation. So managing this from an individual perspective can be an additional challenge.”One of the ways to mitigate the steep jump from domestic to international cricket is A-team tours. The BCB, however, has only made the rare effort to organise these tours. They usually play one or two series per year, and Test players often make up most of the XIs.This year, however, the BCB made the wise decision to send the Bangladesh A team to Pakistan before the Test series in that country. They also sent the high-performance squad to Australia. However, the likes of Mushfiqur, Mominul, Zakir and Joy took up batting spots in the ‘A’ side in Pakistan, and it made sense, since they needed a preparatory period ahead of the Test series. When they left for the Test matches, the others had limited opportunity for game time with the second four-day game in Islamabad mostly rained off.What is the ideal balance between giving younger players exposure and preparing Test players for tough assignments?”I wouldn’t necessarily put an exact number on it as it often depends on the situation at a particular moment in time,” Hemp said. “A-team tours are naturally a great vehicle for younger players to be tested and develop their skills, but other considerations often revolve around national players returning from injury or fringe players that have had limited playing opportunities that need match time leading into a series.”The likes of Jaker and Mahidul made Test debuts after appearing for the ‘A’ team this year, while Shadman and Shahadat earned recalls after taking the same route. None of them, so far, has made a significant impact.Bangladesh’s most impressive young white-ball batter, Towhid Hridoy, still awaits his Test debut•ICC/Getty ImagesOther candidates, meanwhile, wait for their turn. The selectors haven’t yet tried Towhid Hridoy in Tests. He has been Bangladesh’s best young batter in the white-ball formats in the last two years, and also has an interesting first-class CV, with an average of 45.65 after 15 matches. He batted for more than ten hours for his maiden century, which was a double-hundred. He also made a quick 165 last season.Then there’s the case of Amite Hasan, who crossed the 500-run mark in the National Cricket League this week. The selectors have suggested that Amite needs to score more runs for the high-performance and A’ teams before he gets his Test call-up.What happens once these young players get into the Test side is also instructive. Batters can always expect overseas conditions to challenge them; with Bangladesh, even home Tests aren’t a straightforward proposition, with the team playing most of its games on turning pitches at the Shere Bangla National Stadium. It’s a strategy that has made the team competitive against top teams at home, but it has come at the cost of batters’ long-term development.Ultimately it is up to the BCB to create the right atmosphere, where it prioritises red-ball cricket. The previous BCB regime believed that raising match fees and the value of red-ball contracts would do the trick, but you need more than money to produce batters in the class of Brook, Jaiswal, Kamindu and Ravindra, to name just a few. It needs a strong domestic first-class system and an A-team programme that exposes players to at least two or three different sets of conditions in a year. If the BCB can’t get the bigger boards to play them more often, they could even engage with Associate nations interested in red-ball cricket.Bangladesh have faced a similar batting crisis once before in their Test history. It was around the 2007-08 season when Habibul Bashar and Javed Omar were coming towards the end of their careers. It gave a large group of youngsters their opportunities. The selectors were patient with them, often to the annoyance of observers. They then began to perform and win games for the team, and Bangladesh benefited for a decade and a half.There’s a lesson to be learnt there, but the future can only begin to brighten if those in charge take tough decisions in the present.