The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Lanka to field full strength side

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 21, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Lanka to field full strength side

Bangladesh has the right ingredients to be successful, writes Tom Moody

Whatever else World Cup 2007 is remembered for, it will forever be associated with the passing of Bob Woolmer.

Truth be told, we are yet to get over the shock of his death, not least because apart from being one of cricket's most innovative coaches, he was also a wonderful human being who always had a moment to spare for anyone wanting to talk about cricket.

Is his death indicative of the enormous pressure that international coaches are under? I don't know, really, because Bob never seemed the kind of person who would succumb to pressure.

However, there may have been the odd day when he felt the heat more than usual, as we all do.

That is a condition that affects players and coaches alike given the hectic international schedules these days, and Bob was professional enough to realise that.

I am sure we will know more about what caused his demise in the coming days, but for now, all our thoughts are with his family.

Coming to the fore

It is perhaps ironic that the World Cup that saw the last of Bob Woolmer is also the one in which the so-called minnows have come to the fore. Bob was instrumental in taking forward the ICC's High Performance programme, which involved the development of cricket in ICC member countries.

The way Bangladesh and Ireland triumphed over India and Pakistan respectively may have come as a surprise to many, but I for one am not surprised at Bangladesh's performance.

They have developed into a pretty competitive side over the past year, and have beaten quite a few top teams, among them Sri Lanka. So they have gradually shed their minnows tag, and against India, their self-belief was obviously high.

They played as a unit, and more importantly, played without fear. Things have come to a pass where they are now expected to win against the likes of Canada, Ireland, and Zimbabwe.

If you think about it, Bangladesh have the ingredients required for a successful cricketing nation: a large enough population and intense passion for the game. They have also put some very fine facilities in place, which we saw firsthand when we toured the country, and I believe they are starting to reap the benefits of a strong domestic competition.

Finally, they have in Dav Whatmore a coach who has the experience of having coached a developing cricket nation - Sri Lanka - and has a good grasp of working with subcontinent teams.

I would give him lots of credit because it can't be easy licking your wounds all the time, when media around the world are criticising and even laughing at you. To his and his team's credit, they have remained focused on development rather than improving their win-loss ratio.

They have made a very good case for ICC's development programme, and though that does not mean that they will win big matches on a consistent basis from now on, they do prove that given time, they can make an impact.

Definite method

They have developed a definite method, as they showed in the match against India, where they exploited conditions very well. That the pitch was offering slightly uneven bounce should have been clear after our match against Bermuda, when a guy bowling at 120 km/h rapped Sanath on the glove. So the pitch was obviously not as flat as had been expected, a condition that Bangladesh capitalised on.

All of this means that we will hit the ground running against them. Our policy has always been to take a game on merit, irrespective of the opposition, and while I don't deny that all teams will have experienced a subconscious shift in mental gears after Bangladesh's dramatic win against India, we never had any intention of taking them lightly anyway. We will field a full strength side because we are now in the business of World Cup cricket, where there's no room for leisure.

Gameplan

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport