Disastrous is an understatement. Losing to one non-Test-playing country (Ireland by seven wickets) could perhaps be brushed aside as an accident, but losing to a second (Netherlands by six wickets) within a week is a polite form of consenting that the other nations have come of age with fresh performing faces and Bangladesh is stuck with the likes of Ashraful.
While it is of armchair convenience to blame our cricketers at the end of what has been the worst tour with defeats to any team suffixed 'land', despite the first-ever win against England because we have to take into account the subsequent drubbing, the big-margin and embarrassing defeats tell not only of the physical and mental state of the team, inclusive of the tour officials, they describe the harrowing condition of the Bangladesh Cricket Board. We are mighty glad that the match against another 'land' prefixed Scot was called off due to rain because it seems Bangladesh got the advantage.
In a team game, teams win because of teamwork attained by cohesion within the team, the boundaries of which most definitely extends beyond the eleven players who play on the field; it includes every volunteer elected member and salaried official of the board. Let me spell it out for you, a team also loses for lack of unity, consistency, solidity, organisation, structure, and pulling together, and yes! I am heavily indebted to my thesaurus. But at this moment in time, after its ascent since the 1999 World Cup, BCB fits well into the negative synonyms. Incidentally, that is conceivably the only bit of 'well' left in that ailing body.
Now somebody or everybody has to shoulder the responsibility (and not only the lame blame) and do the needful. It is the right time for the BCB president, the elected members, the selectors, the statutory committees, the coach, and the team management (in no specific order) to come to terms with the ground reality, and take a decision about their respective future. I am not ruling out resignation.
The two defeats have become incredibly big because of the impending 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, which Bangladesh is co-hosting, and the BCB has taken up a massive infrastructure development scheme involving a large sum of the state exchequer. The condition of the team (players and officials) is sufficient evidence that the present management is not manned to face the challenges. A total reorganisation and rethought is in order. We cannot continue to shame the government and the nation.
The blame-game may begin with a statement that within BCB there are elements of the previous government conspiring to foil all the good intentions, but it has to end with disbanding the existing setup and forming a new team with tested managers, including some from the existing board, who can deliver selflessly. And please let not the self-seeking profess that the ICC hammer would come down if an elected body is re-organised; it will not be the first time. The entire elected board was dissolved in 2001 as a result of BNP government's wrath. The government must inquire and act now.
Source: thedailystar.net
