Get rid of cricket's minnows - Ponting

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

They *are* showing signs of improvement and as pointed out, their youth sides are brimming with talent.

Youth sides all over the subcontinent are brimming with talent.
Bangladesh's national side is not showing any signs of improvement.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

It's just plain stupid to say that, "Give them test status when they are ready." Define 'ready': If you mean 'when they have a realistic chance of winning a test', then thats not a good definition.

Right now, only England and Australia would be playing test cricket if that criteria was used. If you dont throw them in the deep end, they will not get better. Ever.

The way to build a test team is to give them publicity, and to get the next generation excited about cricket. Sending them to play the Pura or County cricket is not going gather much excitement from the youngers. They want to see their side playing Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar, etc. Thats how you improve. It takes a decade to do so.

If you are unwilling to suffer through for that decade for a test team to evolve, then we should just forget about cricket ever becoming popular around the world and go back to Aus vs. Eng and Eng vs. Aus.

Rubbish, throwing people in at the deep end drowns them, simple as.
I define "ready" as the sort of time India, West Indies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe were introduced - none looked anywhere near as strong as the teams whose ranks they entered, but all had good players and weren't abjectly humiliated every time they turned-out.
Sending people to play any sort of regular, organised, high-quality cricket will always create excitement, especially when the team starts to win. Indeed, if you put a team in a position where it's constantly and non-stop thrashed, there is a very real danger of the excitement being quashed.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Loony BoB

And anyone who thinks that Cricket should hide test status should think of how things really work in the real world. It's not about...

"Oh, if they are quality, give them test status."

It's about...

"If they have test status, then there is a huge economical impact in the game within the nation which directly results in a higher proportion of professional players, not to mention more teenagers that actually will continue playing cricket after they complete their education instead of getting a job that will actually have a high paying position should they succeed."

Test status is the be-all and end-all when it comes to a lot of Zimbabwean players, as the recent debacle over yonder has proven. A lot of the players who at one point were able to live off the income provided by cricket were no longer able to do so after test status was removed and they prompty stopped playing the game. Sure, some players didn't, but the professionals of the world do want to make money, and if a country doesn't have test status then they will look to other careers in order to get a decent house with food on the table for their families. That's the way life is.

Neil said it best. Bangladesh have a strong youth side as a result of having test status, and I firmly believe that they will eventually become worldbeaters.

So why have Pakistan and India never become World-beaters?
It's not just about having the population.
Indeed, if we knew what it was about, we'd be able to manufacture any team we wanted into World-beaters.
Fact is, we can only try and see - and Test and ODI cricket is not the place to be trialling.

[Top_Cat]

Youth sides all over the subcontinent are brimming with talent.
Bangladesh's national side is not showing any signs of improvement.

Time will tell. It remains my opinion that booting them now will do nothing other than set them back and would be a retrograde move by the ICC.

[Richard]

And there's something in that, I certainly don't deny it.
However, I will equally be not remotely surprised if Bangladesh continue to degrade the quality of the World game for the next 6 years.
Just saying "their u19s have done well" is NOT a good idea. U19 cricket is not something that is terribly important. There is talent there in any country - and at u19 level, given the lack of much else, talent is always the most obvious thing.
But we've seen countless players enter the Bangladesh team who are supposedly talented young players, and leave a couple of years later having been exposed as yet another inadaquete.

[Loony BoB]

Do you think that any other countries would develop into the quality desired by yourself without having a good solid amount of years on the test scene? I certainly don't.

...and when did I say anything about the population of a country?

And as for the argument regarding Pakistan and India, maybe you misunderstood my interpretation of "world beaters" - I mean teams capable of pulling off wins against any other team in the world on their day. Pakistan and India are definitely capable of doing just that. Maybe I should be better saying "I firmly believe that they will eventually compete just as well as any of the top test nations today" if it carries across better in your head.

Either way, that was a God-awful argument you made just there. Are you trying to say that India and Pakistan aren't worth of test status too?

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Loony BoB

Do you think that any other countries would develop into the quality desired by yourself without having a good solid amount of years on the test scene? I certainly don't.

I do.
I think the way to success is gradual building, not an attempt to throw someone to the top of a tower and expect them to get there, cling on and not suffer from vertigo.

...and when did I say anything about the population of a country?

I don't think you did, I think that was responding to someone else.

And as for the argument regarding Pakistan and India, maybe you misunderstood my interpretation of "world beaters" - I mean teams capable of pulling off wins against any other team in the world on their day. Pakistan and India are definitely capable of doing just that. Maybe I should be better saying "I firmly believe that they will eventually compete just as well as any of the top test nations today" if it carries across better in your head.

Either way, that was a God-awful argument you made just there. Are you trying to say that India and Pakistan aren't worth of test status too?

No, I'm saying that they've never had a team which could be considered unquestionably the best in The World - which is what World-beaters would suggest to me. I do indeed feel your "I firmly believe that they will eventually compete just as well as any of the top test nations today" would have been a better thing to say. Ask most people what they'd interpret "World-beaters" to mean - most I'd think would say something that would beat anything else in The World.

[FaaipDeOiad]

Don't see how you could say Bangladesh haven't improved. You can say they haven't improved -enough-, and that's fair, but the fact is that this Bangadesh team, despite being incredibly young and inexperienced, would thrash the Bangladesh team of 2-3 years ago with ease.

[Richard]

What evidence is there of that?
Look at the results from recent Bangladesh Tests: each of the last 9 have been defeats by an-innings-and-plenty. The narrowest scrape was an innings and 27, and even that was solely due to some end-of-term torper - if it'd been a match of any significance, it'd have been much more like an-innings-and-90.
Bangladesh are every bit as poor now as they were before June 2003.

[FaaipDeOiad]

Originally Posted by Richard

What evidence is there of that?
Look at the results from recent Bangladesh Tests: each of the last 9 have been defeats by an-innings-and-plenty. The narrowest scrape was an innings and 27, and even that was solely due to some end-of-term torper - if it'd been a match of any significance, it'd have been much more like an-innings-and-90.
Bangladesh are every bit as poor now as they were before June 2003.

The only way you can see it is by watching the games. They haven't put the results on the board yet (aside from beating Australia of course, which was an unusual occurance, but built on good play and not a fluke), but the evidence is there that they are a much better team than they used to be. In the NWS alone there were several players who looked every bit as good as players of a similar age from other countries around the world, scattered among some rubbish players who will never be test class, most of whom were from the older bracket.

Mortaza is easily the best pacer Bangladesh has ever produced, and would be considered a fair talent if he was from any nation in the subcontinent. Shahriar Nafees has a solid technique and if he develops his shotmaking a bit more could be a quality international batsman. Ashraful and Aftab Ahmed showed glimpses of talent along with some poor performances on the tour and could go either way. That is just a few names, and when you add to that the talent coming through at U-19 level you have signs of improvement. Translating that into more results will come with time, and dismissing Bangladesh from tests now would idiotic, as there are signs they are moving forward, and not backwards (unlike Zimbabwe).

[swede]

its wrong to just ditch Bangladesh but its also pointless to just play so many one-sided tests and do nothing.

Why cant Bangladesh just play A-sides? It would seem better for everyone.

If they beat the A side they win the right to play the real team.

I dont get this "test status" whats the point.
Kenya v Bangladesh could be an interesting fixture in the future but apparently cant be played because of some "status"

[Langeveldt]

Originally Posted by swede

its wrong to just ditch Bangladesh but its also pointless to just play so many one-sided tests and do nothing.

Why cant Bangladesh just play A-sides? It would seem better for everyone.

If they beat the A side they win the right to play the real team.

I dont get this "test status" whats the point.
Kenya v Bangladesh could be an interesting fixture in the future but apparently cant be played because of some "status"

how much cricket are Kenya playing now? It's all a bit of a farce really

[Scaly piscine]

Originally Posted by swede

its wrong to just ditch Bangladesh but its also pointless to just play so many one-sided tests and do nothing.

Why cant Bangladesh just play A-sides? It would seem better for everyone.

If they beat the A side they win the right to play the real team.

I dont get this "test status" whats the point.
Kenya v Bangladesh could be an interesting fixture in the future but apparently cant be played because of some "status"

Yea, I've said before how the concept of Test status should be removed altogether. Instead of teams progressing gradually over time, they have to make big leaps, such as establishing a proper first class structure and gaining Test status. I can't think of any other sports that inflicts such barriers and hurdles on future international sides. Then if a side doesn't immediately perform when they get this status it becomes a burden, meanwhile teams like Kenya are neglected.

[silentstriker]

If Bangladesh can consistently do well against the 'A' sides, then they would be ready to play real cricket.

But truthfully, how many sides can consistently beat Australia 'A' anyway?

[archie mac]

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

I concur pretty much word-for-word with Neil. The genie is out of the bottle, you'd send Bangladeshi cricket back year if they were suddenly stripped of Test status. They *are* showing signs of improvement and as pointed out, their youth sides are brimming with talent. It's only a matter of time before they start seriously challenging other sides. Comparing them to ICC minnows is disingenuous and stupid because none of those teams have a formal FC structure in place whereas Bangladesh does. The amount of money which has been sunk into the cricket over there is phenomenal and it's a matter of time before those trees start bearing fruit,

I don't agree, that under 19 form means anything at all. I can remember some great under 19 teams for Aust and only one or two ended up playing Test cricket, and maybe one world beater.

Let them play the best at the lower levels, but they have shown no improvment at all in the Test game.