Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hassan has been critical of the national Test team, claiming the players lack the mindset to to play red-ball cricket. Hassan’s comments have come in wake of Bangladesh’s failure to sustain impressive starts to Test series against Pakistan, New Zealand and South Africa in recent times.
Earlier this year, Bangladesh started their two-match Test series in New Zealand with a historic win in the opening clash before allowing the hosts to draw level. And then they beat South Africa in the first Test of a three-match series before suffering massive defeats in the remaining two fixtures.
“I wanted to know why we are performing like this in Tests,” Hassan was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz. “The coaching staff was giving me examples of four to five Tests and they feel that we can compete in the opening Test but we surrender in the second Test. It happened against Pakistan at home while it was the same in New Zealand and South Africa.”
“They (coaching staff) are yet to find out why this is happening but what they feel is that a lot of our players don’t have the mindset to play 10 days of cricket at a stretch and we have to work on it,” he added.
Hassan said the country’s premier Test cricketers are shying away from playing in domestic red-ball tournaments and it reflects in their performance at the international level.
“The problem is that those who play Test cricket are not taking part in the domestic longer-version cricket and so they don’t have the habit of playing for a long time. Now with the international schedule we have, there is hardly any gap, and so even if we want, we cannot make them play in domestic cricket, otherwise we have to stop domestic cricket,” he said.
