Ben on...Bangladesh, the agony and the agony

Prior to this tour, Bangladesh's greatest achievement in tests against New Zealand was avoiding an innings defeat. Things could only have gotten better.

1st test choke

When Bangladesh had the Black Caps at 52/4 in their first innings in the first test, they had a solid hold on a possible victory. Their grip loosened as the BCs recovered, but defending a target of 317, the game was Bangladesh's to win.

They couldn't do it of course. No doubt, the first test was a good one for Bangladesh, despite the fact that it was lost. And they can justly feel that grim satisfaction of knowing that they lead for most of the match. However, this wasn't the "one that got away". Bangladesh have failed to capitalise on a dominant position a number of times. Most famously perhaps, they squandered a 150-odd first innings lead against Australia in 2006, and they also let Pakistan squeak home by 1 wicket in 2003. They've butchered a few other first innings leads by poor second innings efforts.

One day they will turn a first innings lead into a win against a major team. And that will be great for the game in Bangladesh. However, I reckon the path ahead for Bangladesh doesn't lie in these fortuitous tests.

Fighting draw

The draw in the second test was of course a better final result for Bangladesh than the first test loss. They were however under the cosh for almost the whole of the game. At 44/6, chasing a follow on target of 162, you should have been expecting another loss. The 7th wicket fight back turned the match and saved the test. It was therefore the defining moment of the whole test series for Bangladesh.

It is performances like this that will move Bangladesh cricket forward. Sad as it may sound (and as insufferably arrogant it may be coming from an NZ fan), Bangladesh have to more regularly force the opposition to bat twice before they can think about winning matches.

Ben on...the follow-on target

Vettori's declaration on 262/6 was a good attempt to be aggressive and just what this game needed. And his three wickets were just what we needed.

On the last day, we'll be chasing 17 wickets. Very gettable. The only problem is the likelihood that NZ will have to bat again between the two Bangladesh innings, taking up extra time and requiring another calculation of when to declare. However, Karl has just pointed out to me some interesting aspects to the follow-on law (law 13).

Apparently the follow-on target depends on the length of the match, not just the grade.

Length      Target
5 days      within 200 runs of opponent's total
3 or 4 days 150
2 days      100
1 day       75

The interesting aspect is that the length of the match is determined from when the first ball is bowled. So this will be a two-day match, with a follow-on target of 162, which is not all that low a total for Bangladesh. That dramatically decreases the likelihood of NZ batting again after the first Bangladeshi innings.

Ben on...prospect for the match

The third day of the 2nd test has been rained out, following the washout of the first two days. Even if the weather turns and allows play on the 4th and 5th days, surely there is no point continuing with this test. How could there possibly be a result in only two days?

Well, in fact there have been a few test matches decided within two days. It is also worth considering that extra time can be added to the remaining days, allowing a few extra overs, so we actually have a fraction over two days left. Assuming an extra hour can be added to each day, that should give a total allowable number of overs of 210.

Bangladesh have had many 3-day tests recently and a quick look shows that several of those were completed within 210 overs. During a disastrous 2005, Bangladesh were beaten by England in two tests in 190.1 and 190 overs, respectively, and twice by Sri Lanka within 182 and 198.1 overs. Also, they were beaten by NZ earlier this year within 195.5 overs at Wellington.

However, Bangladesh can take heart from history, as NZ has been rolled in some embarrassingly brief tests. NZ's first test match in 1930 lasted only 189.4 overs and the first NZ–Aus test lasted a scarcely believable 145.2 overs. There are a few other examples also, the most recent of which being a thrashing in 188.4 overs by South Africa in November last year.

Ben on...Cricinfo goes a little bit beige

Cricinfo has a new blogger, Paul Ford, a founding member of the Beige Brigade. (Who we can safely assume is closely related to Paul Holden of Stuff's Sideline Slogger.)

Paul contributes to the blog called Different Strokes, which features 'views from the outside'. I don't know where they draw the boundary, but clearly the Beige Brigade lie outside it.

His first post, Paul analyses Bangladesh and New Zealand based on their performances in the first test and concludes that New Zealand were deserving winners 'by a freckle'.

Ben on...a great escape

Awesome! Forget the 1st innings, ignore the quality of the opposition (and anyway, it's not like we've proven ourselves to be vastly superior) and don't let Cricket with Balls belittle us, the last innings of the test, chasing down more than 300, was a grand achievement.

Ben on...a five-day test

1st test: The 55-run opening partnership got me interested, the 90-run second-wicket partnership got me hopeful, but the 172 runs still required keeps me circumspect.

Also, that run out of Ryder's is the sort of snag that could start the unravelling of the whole innings.

Ben on...Ashraful vs New Zealand

Bangladesh lost the 3rd ODI in the 8th over of the NZ innings. Up to that point, Bangladesh had done well to keep the scoring in check and to dismiss Ryder and McCullum. But in the 8th over, How whipped out two boundaries to set the scoring on a path to a final total that was well out of reach for the Bangladeshis. From that over, NZ's run rate never decreased, and Bangladesh were never up with the required run rate in their innings.

In the eyes of some Bangladeshis however, the game, and the series, was only lost on the first ball of the 16th over of the Bangladesh innings. Playing that delivery, Ashraful shuffled across his stumps to get around the ball and scoop it over leg side, but instead letting it get past him and into his stumps. It was a shot so bad that he felt compelled to apologise to the nation. But for that one ball, that one shot, that decision, the series could have been won. It was that close.

Ben on...lovin' those new uniforms

Like the new Black Caps' uniform? No? Join the Facebook group.

Could be worse though. Check out the rejected designs.

Ben on...3rd ODI

ODI 3 to kick off in a couple of hours. Rather nervous. Can't really rely on Bangladesh's weakness to counteract NZ's capacity for epic failure.

The Bangladeshi fans can smell the fear.

The match is being played at Chittagong. Apparently the pitch there is slow but hard. A batting paradise it has been called, with some dew to assist the team bowling first. If things run similar to the first two matches, that won't help us too much.

Thinking positively however, there are several Black Caps who might have been expecting to go home with a bit of a boost to their averages who need to get their act together. For everyone to come out of this ODI series in the black, the top of the scorecard is going to have look something like this:

Ryder        65
McCullum     60
How         100
Taylor       70
Styris       95
Flynn        20 (not much of an average to maintain)
Oram        DNB

Ben on...a Bangladeshi voice

I've been on the look out for a Bangladeshi blog to read during this series. The closest I have found is this fan site:

Ben on...phew!

Wow. A 75-run win after being 117/7 might be New Zealand's biggest escape – but even if it isn't, it is easily one of the most important.

Ben on...mighty Bangladesh

I don't know what I feel worse about, the loss or having been infected by the overconfidence surrounding this tour.

Way to go Bangladesh. Win 7 against top-flight opposition. Only England and West Indies left to go. Let's give Bangladesh its due and review those wins.

1999 World Cup vs Pakistan

Bangladesh record their first major victory, by 62 runs over a Pakistan team who had already qualified for the next round and who clearly didn't mind losing to their brothers.

2004 vs India

Now a proper test-playing nation, Bangladesh won their 100th ODI, beating their neighbour by 15 runs, suggesting that Dav Whatmore was going to perform a miracle with Bangladesh as he had done with Sri Lanka.

2005 vs Australia

Not exactly welcomed in England just ahead of the Ashes, the Tigers give their critics a black eye with a 5-wicket win over Australia on the back of a masterful century by Ashraful.

2006 vs Sri Lanka

On a roll now, winning a big match every year. 4 wickets against Sri Lanka.

2007 World Cup vs India

Bangladesh's incredible World Cup. Helped keep India out of the Super 8s by beating them by 5 wickets.

2007 World Cup vs South Africa

Bangladesh didn't progress any further in the World Cup, though they showed they belonged with a big 67-run win over South Africa.

2008 vs New Zealand

Swaggering into Bangladesh like they were already the 2nd best team in the world, the Black Caps failed to take seriously their own efforts to talk up the opposition and were beaten in every facet of the game.

Ben on...worst case scenario

With the Black Caps self-destructing in the 1st ODI (149/6 off 40 as I write), threatening to cause major embarrassment to all the commentators predicting the Black Caps rising in the rankings and to me for my uncharitable assessment of Bangladesh's chances in this tour, it is timely to crack open the Predictor and work out what might happen to our ranking if the results don't follow the odds.

NZ lose 1

NZ fall to 113 points (from 116), holding fourth place from India by half a point.
Bangladesh up to 47.

NZ lose 2

NZ fall to 109, past India and Pakistan into sixth place.
Bangladesh up to 51.

NZ lose all 3

NZ fall to 105, dropping another rank past Sri Lanka into seventh.
Bangladesh up to 54, still sadly no where near reaching West Indies on 95.

Ben on...Glossy! New!

Just got a signed e-mail message from Daniel Vettori himself about the blackcaps.co.nz site:

Welcome to the new BLACKCAPS.co.nz! Thanks for your patience while we got our new website ready. We hope you like it!

While the BLACKCAPS have been warming up for our series in Bangladesh, our website has undergone a transformation.

We've written to you, as a supporter of the BLACKCAPS, New Zealand Cricket or the game in general, that our new online presence is back and better than ever.



To receive regular updates on the latest news from our new look newsletter, just register on the site.

Thanks once again for support,



Daniel Vettori
BLACKCAPS Captain

And I have to say, the new site is pretty. The shambles that was the old site has been cleaned up – it now seems quite straightforward to actually find stuff. It also hits the usability notes: it's focussed on users, the pages aren't excessively busy, the navigation isn't as messed up as it was in the old site. Design wise, it's a winner.

It certainly beats the pants off the other associations, which all use pretty bog-standard templates. Cricket Australia | Tiger Cricket | ECB | BCCI (using a .tv domain, showing their priorities) | PCB | Cricket South Africa | Sri Lanka Cricket (MIA) | WICB

As I get most of my cricket from online sources these days, it's encouraging to see New Zealand leading the world in exploiting the internet. (We are kinda let down by this site though.)

That having been said, although there is a shitload of information on blackcaps.co.nz, there isn't a hell of a lot happening there. Perhaps there's some dynamic, interactive content coming, but until then I'll visit the site for the official word on schedules, but not much else.

Ben on...Bangladesh preview

The international season kicks off on 9 Oct with the 1st ODI of NZ's tour of Bangladesh and the 1st test of Aus's tour of India.

However, you would hardly know that there was anything on other than the Aus–Ind grudge series. Jeez, even the Eng–Ind series over a month away is getting more coverage.

So it is up to us to provide some shallow analysis of what the tour to Bangladesh is about.

---

The Black Caps are currently in Bangladesh for a 3-ODI, 2-test series. This is New Zealand's second tour to Bangladesh and the fourth series the two teams have played against each other. To date, there have been simply nothing in the way of fireworks between the two teams. New Zealand have won every full international by wide margins.

Bangladesh

For Bangladesh, this series is the highlight of their home season. In fact, this series is their home season. No one else is visiting. They will be touring South Africa themselves, but they will be done with international cricket for this season by the end of the year.

The Bangladesh stocks have been hit by losses to the ICL, and much has been made about the fact that their list of probables includes six rookies. In my assessment however, while they will be hurt, Bangladesh will not be devastated by the ICL defections, and six rookies in a list of 24 isn't all that dramatic.

The confidence out of Bangladesh is ... mixed – "The players are charged up to play good cricket but I don't know why," according to one. Their hope is to win one match out of the five. Pfft. Fat chance. While anything can happen in cricket, Bangladesh is just too weak and New Zealand, for all our struggles against stronger teams, do not lose to weak teams. If Bangladesh wins a match in this series, it will be a major upset.

In fact, I'm going to give you the numbers. A NZ cricket fan expressing confidence his team will not lose has no credibility, so I'm going to have to prove my point with facts and figures.

Against proper competition (i.e. test-playing nations apart from Zimbabwe), Bangladesh has won 6 out of 119 ODIs. Their chance of losing a single ODI is therefore about 95%. The chance of losing three in a row is a product of the chances of losing each of them – about 85%.

In tests, Bangladesh has failed to win a single test against this competition after 45 attempts. Being as fair as possible, let's assume the chance of this happening is only 50%, so we're assuming Bangladesh has been neither lucky nor unlucky to get this result. A quick calculation on the back of an envelope equates this with a 98.5% chance of losing a single test, or a 97% chance of losing two tests.

Giving a grand chance of not winning a single match in this tour of 82.5% or nearly 5 to 1.

Players to watch: Mohammad Ashraful, with more test centuries than the rest of the squad combined ... in fact, the only current player to have scored test centuries – cripes! ... Ashraful is the great hope of Bangladesh and surely the rock that any success will have to be built on; Shahadat Hossain, Bangladesh's most penetrative bowler; Enamul Haque jnr, Dav Whatmore's protege and the other left-arm spinner in the competition; Imrul Kayes and Shamsur Rahman, two rookie batsmen looking to make good on the opportunities offered by the ICL defections

New Zealand

For New Zealand the equation is quite different: "hiding to nothing".

The Black Caps have to win every game or the tour will be a failure. And when they do win, what would they have gained? The ODI wins will push us up to no. 2 in the ICC rankings, but beating the 9th ranked team to go ahead of a team (England) we comprehensively beat a few months ago shows how bunk the ranking system is. Will the tour provide preparation for the Aus series in November? Well, it didn't work out that way last time.

Players to watch: For the individual players, there may be something more interesting riding on this tour. For several players – Redmond, Elliot, Flynn, O'Brien – this tour will be something of a second chance to stake a claim for further selection. A failure here could at least raise doubts about their selection in the rest of the season. This is of course Jesse Ryder's first appearance in a test squad. You'll recall that Ryder scored 196 ODI runs in February at a SR of 100, showing he has the stuff for the mid-length version of the game. If he did exactly the same in the tests we'd be pretty pleased, but what we really want to see is that he as a test game to complement his limited-over game.

Ben on...new duds for summer

Looks like the Black Caps are getting their own version of the Walla-bra. The Black Caps have a new sponsor and are getting a new look, shown off here by the team's designated models Scott Styris and Chris Martin.

The new uniforms are produced by Canterbury (hence the faux futuristic look and that bloody bra). They are lightweight and highly breathable. They can also tell the player how cold or hot they are by little sensors on the shirts that change colour with temperature – as if a player standing about on a cricket field isn't highly sensitive to the sun on the back of his neck or the chill making his fingers ache. It gets better though. There are three types of 'super' trousers, for bowling (with a ball polishing patch), fielding (shock-proof) and batting (ventilated).

Ben on...Solid Energy NZ A, limp and listless

New Zealand A (who NZ Cricket seem to like to call Solid Energy New Zealand A) started the A Team Triangular Series in southern India with a hiss and a roar, thrashing Aus A by 129 runs. This gave them a good headstart on the table with 5 points. However, they then proceeded to lose the rest of their games by wide margins, and under the humiliating points system used at this tournament, saw their points dwindle away to a final total of 2.

Still, there were a couple of good performances.

Peter Fulton, with four solids scores and an average of 55.5, pushed his claim for a spot in the Black Caps should any of the incumbents not perform in Bangladesh. And on the basis of this A performance, Redmond with his 28 runs from three innings has his work cut out for him holding his place against Fulton.

Mark Gillespie took 7 wickets from his four matches at a SR of 30-odd. Jeetan Patel also did well with 6 wickets at a good average of 23.

Beyond these three though, there wasn't much to write home about. Apart from a 50 by Neil Broom, none of the non-internationals did anything impressive.

I don't really understand the point of A series cricket, but I can see three things that might come out of an A-team tournament.

The first is that it gives out of favour players an opportunity to play themselves back into contention. Fulton is a beneficiary in this case. James Marshall is not.

A series give fringe players the opportunity to find form and get practice. Gillespie, Patel and Elliot have made use of this opportunity. Redmond, not so much. Daniel Flynn could have benefited from a run in this tournament.

The third advantage of A series is that it gives up-and-comers the chance to impress. It is pity that the emerging players, the likes of Greg Hay and Martin Guptil, didn't manage to draw attention to themselves.

Ben on...close shaves

I didn't find the time to comment on the controversy around the Champions Trophy in Pakistan and its postponement. My position would have been that I support NZ Cricket's decision not to send a team to Pakistan. I actually think that the threat posed by terrorism is very small and I typically wouldn't agree with a decision that allows terrorism to impact on our regular lives in this way. However, the NZ cricket team has had several close shaves while touring terrorism-wracked countries, so I think it is only reasonable that they are reluctant to put themselves at risk.

Recall these close shaves:

• 2002 tour of Pakistan called off after a suicide bomb was denoted outside the hotel they were staying at.
• 1992 tour of Sri Lanka disrupted after a terrorist attack outside their hotel, the grisly after-effects of which several of the NZ team were to witness.
• 1987 tour of Sri Lanka curtailed after a bomb blast at a bus station that killed over 100. It didn't occur close to where the team was at the time, though they had passed the bus station half an hour earlier.

It was reported last night that the Black Caps were scheduled to stay at the Marriott Hotel at the very time it was hit by a terrorist attack that killed 53 people and injured hundreds more. If they had been there, there is every likelihood that some of the team could have been injured or killed.

Even though the Marriott bomb occurred half a world away, it must qualify as another close shave.

Ben on...how badly hit is Bangladesh?

Shock news out of Bangladesh, less than a month ahead of the New Zealand tour, is that 13 Bangladeshi players, including six current internationals, are joining the ICL and effectively leaving international cricket.

New Zealand will be the first team to try out the newly weakened Bangladesh, with our own weakened side, and the powers that be are not happy.

So just how badly will these defections affect the Bangladesh team?

The internationals amongst the rebels include Habibul Bashar, Aftab Ahmed, Alok Kapali, Shahriar Nafees, Farhad Reza, Dhiman Ghosh and Mosharraf Hossain. Of these, the biggest losses are Bashar, with his 50-test experience, and Nafees, the 22-year old prodigy and the only other of these players to have a test batting average over 25. All the others are, quite frankly, replaceable. The sad fact about Bangladesh cricket is that many of its players have simply failed to add anything to the team. Another point to note is that Bashar was approaching the end of his career and his form had already slipped away. Losing Bashar is analogous to losing Fleming – clearly a big loss, but one that the team could ride out. Losing Nafees is more like losing a Ross Taylor.

My feeling is that most of the talent in the current Bangladesh team has remained. Their talented captain Mohammad Ashrafal is staying (reportedly turning down a $500,000/year offer from the ICL), as are Tamim Iqbal (who scored a couple of 50s against us last year) and Shahadat Hossain, their only bowler to have a test average of less than 40, amongst others.

Losing 13 players will certainly hurt Bangladesh. Several of the rebels are first choice picks for the national team, while the others would otherwise be the replacements for the first choice players. Take 13 players out of the top two tiers of NZ cricket and...well, it doesn't bear thinking about. Bangladesh apparently has a robust domestic cricket scene, so it could well be that the weaker of the rebels could be replaced fairly easily. I therefore think that the impact of the defections will not be as great as the numbers suggest. However, the fact that they have a large pool of mediocre players to replace losses in this way, highlights the great loss that Nafees will be.

In the longer term, the damage could be greater, but I might consider the long term implications in another post.

Ben on...ruminations on the summer schedule

I'm pretty happy with how my tabulation of the cricket summer came out. It makes it quite easy to see how the various tours are laid out:

• Tour to Bangladesh
• Half month break
• Tour of Australia begins, then is broken just as it gets up to speed
• Players have about a week to disassemble and make it home before the first test in the leisurely series with West Indies
  
• Another half month break in the international schedule for some domestic cricket
• Then back to Oz for some one-dayers that really should have been part of a tri-series
• More domestic cricket
• Rushed tour by India

The two month gap in the Oz series is the stand-out head scratcher, but the four-day break between the WACA and MCG ODIs in Oz is a mystery (or does it just take that long to cross the Australian continent?). The Boxing Day 20-20 makes an unwelcome return and climaxing the Oz series with a 20-20 is a real 'who gives a fuck'.

My biggest beef with the schedule though is the number of tests. You'll note that each of the four tours includes only two tests. Two-test series are for losers; either the other guys just don't want to play with you or they don't have time for you. Obviously we're not going to agree to more than two tests with the Bangladeshis, 'cause we just don't rate them. Equally, India don't want to hang around for longer than they have to. Australia are usually pretty fair with us, so two tests is probably all they can reasonably spare this summer. The real disappointment is the West Indies series, the showcase of the summer. It's a shame the Windies couldn't give up one of their tests against England to allow them to extend their tour here by a test, but that's probably too much to ask.

I'm hoping that this pattern of short test rubbers is not the way of the future. I suspect that it has been necessary this year because Australia's window is the same as ours, so we have had to fit one of our away tours within our home window.