A day ago, Muminul Haque raised questions about the quality of first-class cricket in Bangladesh. This time, captain Nazmul Hossain Shanto also put first class cricket on the stage. He claims that cricketers who play first-class cricket do not get the challenge of playing in international cricket.
Bangladesh suffered the same fate in Chittagong after losing by a huge margin of 328 runs against Sri Lanka in Sylhet. The hosts lost this Test by a huge margin of 192 runs due to batting failure. National team cricketers do not play first-class cricket at all, after a long break they have to play a Test series. Because of this, the batsmen lost their wickets when they returned from limited overs cricket to longer version cricket. Cricket analysts believe that this is due to not playing enough first-class cricket.
Due to the busy schedule of the national team, the cricketers do not have much opportunity to play first class cricket. Those who get a chance, that too in one or two matches. Among the cricketers in the Test squad against the Lankans, Sadman Islam played the most matches. He was the highest run scorer in the National Cricket League with 475 runs batting 9 innings. But he was not given a chance in the Test squad against the Lankans. Besides, Zakir Hasan has batted 6 innings in the National League. Mahmudul Hasan Jai played 6 innings in BCL and National League. Shahadat Hossain Dipu played four innings. None of those who played succeeded. This failure is mainly due to the vast difference between the structure of first-class cricket and international cricket.
Urging to increase the quality of first-class cricket, he said, “If the wickets of first-class cricket are a little better, if we can face the challenges in the conditions we will be playing (in the international arena), then it is very good.”
He doesn’t see an option to improve himself by playing quality matches, ‘I still think we can’t play the kind of challenges we face here (internationals), the quality matches there (first class). If our players can play more international matches, it will be good. The more matches I play, there is room for improvement.
Naturally, in first-class cricket in Bangladesh, no tough bowler has to deal with in that sense. As a result, the difficult test has to be given in full by coming to the national team. While the task is easy for regular national team cricketers, it is very difficult for young cricketers to adapt. Earlier in the press conference, Muminul compared Bangladesh’s first class cricket with international cricket and said, ‘What is the standard of our first class and international games? Are they of the same level? I am in practice, there is a lot of difference between me and a junior player. I have played 61 Test matches including today. After playing test matches I understand how to handle situations. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. But it will be bad to hear, it is very difficult for us to play domestic cricket and international test matches.
However, Shanto sees the need to increase the tour of the ‘A’ team to fill this deficiency, ‘The thing that seems most effective to me is when we can send the Bangladesh A team to the place with the A team before going to play a series. So I think it would be good if the players who are only playing Tests or those who only play one or two formats can play matches earlier.’
Shanto further added, ‘Condition and preparation will be good. For those who play in all three formats, it is difficult. They have to prepare mentally. If we can send this team who only play Tests, then it seems that there will be a little improvement in this place.’
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