A mission to fix lower middle order enigma in T20 cricket
Image : Cricfrenzy
||CF Correspondent ||
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has taken the upcoming Bangabandhu Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) seriously in a bid to find out some proper T20 players for lower down the order for the World T20 in Australia in next year.
Bangladesh never seems to do well in the last few overs of batting in the T20 format as was the case in the last T20 match in Nagpur in India.
What seems the main problem is that Bangladeshi batsmen can’t clear the boundary with ease as they more rely on timing rather than power-hitting.
The Bangabandhu BPL is set to kick-start on December 11 in Dhaka. While it is the tournament to celebrate the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, it’s also a platform to give the players a chance to cope with the T20 format ahead of the World T20, said BCB selector Habibul Bashar Sumon.
Unlike the last six editions of the tournament, here the BCB is looking after the seven teams, who are supervised by their directors as the cricket apex board decided to axe all the existing seven franchisees earlier.
“We are looking for this BPL because we have World T20 next year and so we are keen to prepare specialized T20 players through this tournament,” Bashar said on Saturday.
“The youngsters will be under our scanner, while the senior players will be also in our radar. We have the lack of player with 140-150 strike in T20 cricket. So it’s the arena where we are focusing. So this BPL is very important for us. If I am specific in this regard, I will say we need specialist T20 players in No. 5,6 and 7 position, who can hit big and could make runs with healthy strike rate.”
Even though Bangladesh got some T20 specialists like Sabbir Rahman, Soumya Sarkar through BPL tournaments, they couldn’t exactly live up to the expectation.
Bashar said he is confident of getting some proper T20 players from this BPL also.
“In every BPL, we get some players. I believe there won’t be any exception in this BPL also. Hopefully we will get the players what we need.”
Not only the BPL, Bashar said, the tournaments like Emerging Cup, SA Games are also the platform for the team management to pick up players for the future. Bangladesh male team, a Under-23 team led by Nazmul Hossain Shanto, is going to play SA Games in Nepal and expected to clinch the gold since there is no team from Pakistan and India.
Bangladesh announced a strong team for the SA games and there are some players in the team who have already donned the national jersey. The rest of the players are also knocking the door of the national team. The SA Games cricket discipline will be a plain T20 affair, and it won’t be tagged as International T20 or other T20.
Bashar said, they are not only eying a gold, which would be a national pride, but also it’s a tournament to test the players’ ability to play T20 cricket.
“Competitive tournament is always helpful to make players competitive. So when you will play any competitive tournament, you have to see the interest of the team. The SA Games is important because we can test the players’ ability in T20 games,” he said.
“It’s a new experience [SA Games] because the players are not used to play in the games. But when you will win gold, you will see your flag flying high which is a unique experience and that’s why the players are motivated. So you have to play good cricket.”
