Author: Liam

The Afghanistan Cricket team had to remain content with the silver medal in the cricket competition of the recently played Asian games in Korea. They lost to Sri Lanka in the final match.

Since, cricket is not famous in Korea, it was thought that the stadium would be empty during the game, but, surprisingly, people showed up and they showed up in decent numbers. The spectators’ count would surely have been close to 1500, if not more and among the spectators, there were not only Afghans and Sri Lankans, there were some Koreans too which shows that this game of 22 yards is getting bigger day by day.

Afghanistan, which bowled first, drew the first blood early, but, thereafter, the wickets were hard to come by for some time as a good, aggressive partnership got built for the second wicket by Sri Lanka.

But, from the 10^th over onwards, the Sri Lankan batting lost the way and what had appeared to be a big total in the making remained a modest one.

134 was the number that Afghanistan had to get to in their chase to make sure that they win the gold medal for their country.

Unfortunately, batting second on that sticky pitch proved to be very difficult. The Afghan players fell one by one against the wonderful spin attack of Sri Lanka and could not even reach half way through.

A 68-run defeat is what the Afghans had to suffer, but, they can be very proud of the silver medal as well. They have come second in a tournament in which two test nations namely Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were participating.

For Sri Lanka, on the other hand, it was the first gold medal in the event. So, it was a big achievement for them too.

Abdur Razzak bowled one of his most expensive spells in the third One Day International match against West Indies at Warner Park. The left arm spinner gave away 76 runs in his quota of 10 overs.

The day might not have been this bad for Razzak if his captain Mushfiqur Rahim had held onto a stumping chance.

Pretty early in his spell, Razzak had outfoxed Darren Bravo by pulling his length slightly back. The Caribbean no. 3 could not connect and Mushfiqur had enough time to take the bails off, but, he failed in completing the process as he fumbled the ball and the batsman stayed on.

With that lost chance, Bangladesh almost lost the game too as Bravo clattered them to all parts afterwards.

Bravo was pretty severe on Razzak who was bowling right in his arc.

There was moderate wind blowing as well which, if anything, helped the West Indies batsmen as even their mistimed hits reached outside the fence.

However, it would not be fair to blame Mushfiqur only for Razzak’s poor looking figures. The bowler himself is also to be blamed as he tried to bowl short of a length more often than not and was cut frequently off the back foot by both the left hander Bravo as well as the right hander Denesh Ramdin.

Razzak had not played in the first match of the series. He was brought in the second match to provide some variety to the bowling line up of the Bangladeshi side, but, he couldn’t live up to what was expected as he remained wicket less in the two matches that he played.

The 32-year old bowled his full quota in both the matches conceding 119 runs in total at an economy rate of just below 6.

There will be a 3-match test series played between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe towards the end of this year.

It’s not often that these two teams get to play so many test matches in a series. Normally, they just play 2-match test series, but, this time, the boards of the two countries have decided to have a prolonged series.

The last time that Zimbabwe had featured in a 3-match test series was more than a decade back i.e. in 2001, while, Bangladesh had done that in 2007.

This series will start in the third week of October and the first couple of matches will take place in Chittagong. The third and final match will be played in Dhaka.

The last few months have been absolutely devastating for Bangladesh Cricket. They suffered shocking defeats against the minnows in the Asia Cup and in the World T20 Championship and then, playing against the second string Indian side last month, they lost two one day international matches in a row.

In one of those matches, Bangladesh had got India all out for 105 runs, but, they couldn’t chase down even that target and ended up getting bundled out for just 58 to lose the match.

Apart from the results, some other things have gone wrong with Bangladesh cricket as well. Their premier all rounder Shakib Al Hasan who is probably their best player ever has had a spat with the team management because of which he has been handed suspension recently.

The captain Mushfiqur Rahim has been reported to be thinking about quitting captaincy. So, things have got pear shaped for Bangladesh of late. The only thing that can get things fall in place again is a few victories which they can get against Zimbabwe, but, they will have to play well.