Local Anaesthesia

The men from the Caribbean had lost to India in the previous game. Bangladesh sniffed a chance of pulling off an upset against the defending champions. On the eve of the match, Bangladesh skipper Mushfiqur Rahim was asked about the victory over the West Indies in the 2007 World T20.

Below par

“If we can play to our potential then I know that in our home conditions we can give them a run for their money. Even if the opponents are defending champions,” Rahim said. But Bangladesh is a team that fluctuates wildly between ‘very bad’ and ‘surprisingly good’. On Tuesday, the former was the case. They made four changes to their side for the game against West Indies, but the result was still disappointing.

Bangladesh put West Indies into bat, with much hope. But the first ball from Mashrafe Mortaza was a sign of things to come. Dwayne Smith was on strike but he didn’t have to put bat to ball as the delivery hurtled down the leg side. It beat the wicketkeeper and crossed the boundary ropes. Five wides were conceded. Smith found a boundary through midwicket off the second legal delivery and Mortaza ended up conceding 11 runs from the first over.

But all was not lost. Chris Gayle was struggling to run between wickets as he was carrying a niggle. To make matters worse he wasn’t middling or even timing the ball well. But Bangladesh failed to take advantage, so much so that invariably, in the case of a tight single, the throw would end up at Smith’s end.

Off-spinner Sohag Gazi was introduced in the fourth over. Gazi had dismissed Gayle on three occasions in the previous series and was brought into the side with the sole intention of getting the Jamaican out early. However, Smith made it a point to shatter Gazi’s confidence with consecutive boundaries off his first two deliveries.

Smith allowed Gayle to take his time to settle down by taking the attack to the Bangladesh bowlers. At the end of the powerplay overs, West Indies were 36 for no loss. Smith made made 25 of those runs, with Gayle batting on 5 off 15. When Smith brought up his half-century off 33 balls, Gayle was on 17. Off 25 balls.

Smith hit four consecutive boundaries against Gazi to bring up his fifty. By this point the pressure had got to the Bangladesh fielders. Misfields and poor throwing only added to their misery. Even Shakib Al-Hasan, the side’s brightest star, couldn’t put the brakes on the West Indies innings. For a brief while when Smith and Lendl Simmons were dismissed in successive overs, the West Indies’ scoring rate dipped. But 20 runs were leaked in the 17th over of the innings, bowled by Shakib.

Sixteen more were added in the 19th over and though four wickets fell in the final over, the West Indies had reached 171 for seven. Gayle, in spite of having an off day, managed to score a run-a-ball 48.

Quick finish

In reply, Bangladesh lost three wickets within the first four overs. The variety that medium-pacer Krishmar Santokie, Samuel Badree (4/15) and Sunil Narine brought to the West Indian attack on Tuesday would have seen the best of sides struggle. Bangladesh, of course, were no exception. They were bowled out for 98 in 19.1 overs.

The stadium started to empty when Mushfiqur was caught brilliantly at point off the bowling of Badree in the eleventh over. Bangladesh were six down for 58 as the skipper walked off the field. In the stands hundreds of empty chairs shimmered in the floodlight.

Pakistan flags at Sher-e-Bangla cause row

Agence France-Presse
Dhaka

The Bangladeshi hosts of cricket’s World T20 threatened to ban local supporters from stadiums if they are seen carrying the flags of any of the other teams competing in the tournament.

The order came after an outcry over images of locals waving Pakistani flags during the recently concluded Asia Cup, also held in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh was part of Pakistan before the 1971 war of independence in which it says three million people were killed — most at the hands of the army of the Islamic republic and its allied militias.

A Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) spokesman said the board had issued a directive after it “noticed that some local fans were flying foreign flags flouting the country’s flag rules”.

“We’ve received instruction in this regard,” the spokesman told AFP, without clarifying. “As such we’ve ordered security officials and guards to make sure Bangladesh fans cannot carry or fly flags of foreign nations in the stadiums.”

The BCB order came on the eve of Bangladesh’s 44th Independence Day celebrations, marking the day when the nation went to war against Pakistan.