Limited-over obsession harming Tests

While Bangladesh's cricketers should be admonished and condemned for their abject showing in South Africa, where they lost the two Tests in Potchefstroom and Bloemfontein by 333 runs and an innings and 254 runs respectively, it should also be asked whether the right personnel have been chosen to do well in Test cricket, whether home or away. In both batting and bowling, there have been question marks over some players heading into this tour, and by the end of the two Tests, those question marks have just grown.

The faith in the same players, regardless of their results in Tests, seems to suggest that Tests are really not important, not as much as ODIs or T20I cricket anyway. Such an attitude was showcased when before the last two World Twenty20s, scheduled Test matches were jettisoned to shoehorn in more T20Is.

Soumya Sarkar's technique is faulty, even in conditions where the ball does not move around. He overcame his lack of feet movement and loose hands outside off stump while giving notice of his talent with a superb 86 in Christchurch in January and followed that up with a string of three consecutive fifties in the first two Tests in Sri Lanka. But some mode of dismissals and his strike rates over those innings point to an opener unwilling to graft, as the surfaces in places away from the subcontinent sometimes call for.

This temperament ill-suited to the format was further in evidence in some of the shots he played to get out in Sri Lanka and the home series against Australia. In the second innings in Galle, he played an ill-advised pull at the start of the third day. In the second innings of the second Test in Colombo, at the start of a tricky chase, he gave Rangana Herath the charge and holed out. In the second innings of the Dhaka Test against Australia, he did the same thing against Ashton Agar. In between those dismissals were many where airy wafts resulted in edges behind the wicket or to the slip cordon. Since his half centuries in the first three innings in Sri Lanka have been scores of 10, 8, 15, 33, 9, 9 and three -- the last two being in the most recent Test in Bloemfontein where in the first innings, he was an opener unsure of where his leg stump was, and in the second innings was the classic Soumya dismissal -- caught at slip.

Sabbir Rahman is quite another case. His technique is solid but he has possibly the worst temperament among the current side. Since his twin 50s in Wellington in January, he has averaged 19.85 over 14 innings. Highlights over that time have been twin 40s in the 100th Test in Colombo and 66 in the first innings in Chittagong against Sri Lanka. In the four innings in South Africa, he has recorded scores of 30, 4, 0 and 4.

The preference given to ODI players – Sabbir and Soumya are prime examples – is illustrated perfectly when you consider the string of scores that led to Mominul Haque, a Test specialist, being dropped for the Colombo Test. Since the start of the year he had scores of 64, 23, 12, 27, 7 and 5 before the Colombo Test.

If the batting woes can be looked at through individual players, the bowling is in much worse health, especially when touring abroad. While the spin trio of Shakib Al Hasan, Mehedi Hasan Miraz and Taijul Islam can be expected to bowl sides out at home, no current pacer other than Mustafizur Rahman can put hand on heart and say that they are Test bowlers. Taskin Ahmed averages 97.4 per wicket, Rubel Hossain averages 79, Subhasish Roy averages 51.7 and Shafiul Islam 55.4.

More than mere stats, none of the four mentioned can bowl consistently on a line and length to frustrate good batsmen on good pitches, nor can they sustain their pace over a Test day, except Rubel. For this, a legend though he is, fast bowling coach Courtney Walsh will have to take some of the blame for not being able to instil longer-version skills in bowlers who are predominantly tuned to ODI cricket, as proven by Taskin and Rubel's far superior figures in ODI cricket.

And it is not like these 15 cricketers are the only ones available to Bangladesh. Soumya and Sabbir may be promising cricketers in the ODI format, with a view to the 2019 World Cup, but domestic cricketers like Naeem Islam and Marshall Ayub, to name just two, have been displaying longer-version temperament and piling on the runs for years. There are bowlers like Robiul Islam and Mohammad Shahid, who although not spectacular, have shown a far greater appreciation for the demands of longer version pace bowling than any of the bowlers named above.