High risk, high reward: Bangladesh’s white-ball revolution finally begins

‘We want to play fearless cricket,’ is a claim Bangladesh cricket fans are all too familiar with.

Many players, captains and coaches of the Bangladesh team have over the years made the same claim, they want to play aggressive cricket, they want to take the game by the scruff of the neck and dominate opponents with the bat and ball.

But their claims have almost always proven to be false as once the match began, the same old Bangladesh team would turn up. A team that can win against top teams, but it’s usually playing the one way they know, ‘The Bangladeshi way.’

In ODIs, it usually meant restricting the opponent to a total of around 250 and then chasing it down or posting a total over the 250-mark and then fighting tooth and nail to defend the runs. In T20s, the total came down to the 150-160 region.

But after years of seeing the national team play more or less the same way in limited-overs cricket while the rest of the cricket world was playing at a distinctly higher tempo, the fans were in somewhat disbelief when the much awaited change finally occurred.

The change began in the three-match Twenty20 series against England, where Bangladesh shocked the reigning World Champions and won the series 3-0, their maiden series win over the English in any format.

Bangladesh have defeated Australia and New Zealand in home T20 series in the past. But those series wins were tainted as they were played on slow and low pitches at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka and the opponent teams were also second-string.

But England, although a little light on the batting department, had most of their regular starters in the XI and had their full-strength bowling attack at their disposal. The pitches of the series were also quite batting friendly.

In less than a week after the England series, the three-match ODI series against the Irish kicked off in Sylhet.

Bangladesh continued their dominance, registering their biggest ever victory in terms of runs (184) in the first match and the biggest win in terms of wickets in hand (10) in the third match.

The Tigers posted their highest ever ODI score in the first ODI, 338-3, and then broke that record in the second ODI, 349-6, which due to rain ended in a no result.

After winning the ODI series 2-0, Bangladesh took on Ireland in a three-match T20 series in Chattogram.

Bangladesh won handsomely the first two T20s, scoring over 200 in both matches and took an unassailable 2-0 lead.

But in the third match, the high-flying Bangladesh team were brought down to earth by Ireland.

Batting first, the hosts got bundled out for a meagre 124 in 19.2 overs. Neither the pitch was a difficult one, nor the Irish bowlers were particularly lethal. It was the Bangladesh batter's over-aggressive mindset and their insistence to keep going for big shots that caused the batting collapse.

Ireland chased down the total with the utmost ease, winning by seven wickets and with 36 balls to spare, their biggest victory against a Test-playing nation in T20s in terms of balls in hand.

It doesn’t take an expert to see that the overzealous approach of the batsmen was the main cause behind the defeat.

Had Bangladesh played out a few overs cautiously after losing a couple of early wickets, maybe they could’ve posted a better score and maybe even averted the defeat.

But such thoughts didn’t creep into the mind of skipper Shakib Al Hasan after the defeat.

“We didn’t bat well, kept on losing wickets. But that happens with the way we want to play our cricket,” Shakib said in the post-match presentation ceremony. “Don’t want to change our approach. If we want to be a very good team, that’s the way we have to play. We might fail in some games.”

Shakib’s quote indicates clarity of thought. It shows that the think tank has finally realised that in the current landscape of white-ball cricket, there is no scope for meandering about as a batting unit.

His quote was also quite similar to something former England captain and the person who was at the forefront of the revolution in white-ball cricket, Eoin Morgan, had said after a defeat.

Morgan said this after his side lost an ODI against India on 23 March 2021 in Pune. It was a match England should’ve won but lost due to a batting approach that can be termed as cavalier at best and rank stupid at worst.

Chasing 318, England had cruised to 135-0 in 14.1 overs thanks to Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy’s assault at the top.

The English team needed another 183 runs off 215, at a required rate of just above five runs per over, which should’ve been a walk in the park.

But England somehow found a way to mess up the run chase and got bundled out for 251 in 42.1 overs, losing the match by 66 runs.

More than the Indian bowlers, it was the English batters and their insistence to keep going for big shots that caused the defeat.

Naturally, after a defeat like that, England captain Morgan was questioned about his team’s batting approach.

But Morgan was unwavering in his response, saying there was nothing wrong with their approach and that his team must continue this attacking brand of cricket in the future.

This mindset is exactly what took England to their maiden ICC ODI World Cup trophy in 2019 and their second ICC T20 World Cup trophy in 2022.

So, hearing Shakib say the same thing in different words as Morgan is an encouraging sign.

But when Morgan defended England’s approach, he had the benefit of having a World Cup in the trophy cabinet which was enough to keep the naysayers quiet. Shakib doesn’t have that luxury.

Bangladesh’s cricket culture revolves around immediate gratification. As long as the team is winning, everyone is happy. Hardly anyone bothers about the long term ramifications or how the team can build from here to actually win something substantial.

The current T20 and ODI team is on the right track. But as a team which is so used to playing in their mundane way and is trying to adopt a completely new approach, mistakes are bound to happen.

So what happened against Ireland on Friday, most likely will not be an isolated incident. Similar defeats batting collapses and huge defeats are on the cards.

But if they don’t let the defeats affect them too much and carry on with their positive mindset, they are likelier to succeed more times than fail and also will have a better chance of doing well in the big ICC events, like the ODI World Cup coming up in India in October-November of this year.

What this team needs right now more than anything is patience and support from the board high-ups, fans and the media. Otherwise, the white-ball revolution in Bangladesh cricket will get nipped in the bud.