Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

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Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Tue Oct 18, 2016 4:06 pm

Starting with a quiz (to make you feel like you're at a work related study day).

1. In what year did Bangladesh make its Test debut?
2. And who against?
3. Who is their most capped player?
4. In what year did they make their Test debut against England?
5. Only two Bangladeshis have scored hundreds against England, both in 2010. Name one.
6. Name one of the two UK Test venues to host Bangladesh outside London.
7. Which batter compiled the highest Test score for England against Bangladesh?
8. Name the two Test sides Bangladesh have beaten.
9. Which two sides have a 100% win record against Bangladesh in Tests.
10. Who is Bangladesh's leading wicket taker in all Tests?
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Tue Oct 18, 2016 4:50 pm

Answers.

| +
1. November, 2000, at the Bangabandhu Stadium, Dhaka.

2. India, who won by nine wickets. Aminul Islam scored Bangladesh's first Test hundred with 145. Naimur Rahman took 6-132.

3. Mohammad Ashraful with 61 caps. The diminutive, and now diminished, batter played 61 times and scored six tons. He's still only 32. Of current players, Mushfiqur Rahim has played most, 48 times.

4. October 2003, at the Bangabandhu Stadium, Dhaka. England won by seven wickets. Steve Harmison took nine wickets. Trescothick scored a a ton. Tres and Ian Bell have both scored three hundreds against Bangladesh.

5. On the tour of England in 2010, Tamim Iqbal scored hundreds at Old Trafford and Lord's. He also scored four fifties against England that year. Junaid Siddique scored a defensive hundred in Chittagong that year in a vain but valiant attempt to draw the game, made over six and a half hours. Mushfiqur Rahim made a five hour 95, both falling to Graeme Swann.

6. At Chester-le-Street in 2005. Trescothick and Bell made 150s. Hoggard and Harmison took 5-fers. England won by an innings, losing only three wickets. And in Manchester 2010. England also won by an innings, and Ian Bell again made a hundred. Swann and Finn took 5-fers.

7. Jonathan Trott's 226 in eight hours at Lord's in 2010. England made 505, with only Strauss also passing fifty. England won by eight wickets.

8. Bangladesh have beaten Zimbabwe five times and lost six. And they beat Floyd Reifer's strikebusting West Indians 2-0 in 2009.

9. England have beaten Bangladesh eight times to zero. Australia are 4-0 ahead. Next, Pakistan have won eight with one draw. Sri Lanka have the most wins, with 14, but have drawn twice.

10. Shakib Al Hasan has 147 wickets in 42 Tests. He's the only Bangladesh bowler to average under 40 to have played ten Tests. Another slow left armer, the retired Mohammad Rafique is the only other bowler to take a hundred wickets, with a dead ton at 40.8.
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Tue Oct 18, 2016 4:54 pm

Got a PM, which was 9/10. Not too many are going to get the wrong answer I reckon.

Later. Five memorable performances from England against Bangladesh.
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Tue Oct 18, 2016 9:11 pm

While England versus Bangladesh has never conveyed a great deal of prestige, this current tour, after Bangladesh have shown some fairly recent improvement, is the ultimate snub. The Tests have been relegated to unofficial warm-ups for England's India tour. It's probably better than the sides not meeting at all, but the Bangladesh team might find some reserves of determination at their diminished status, much as did the 'mediocre' West Indies against England a year ago. Even if the current hosts have historically been, at best, tolerated, this time their underdog rank has been declared by the visitors for all to see.

Of course, England are not alone. The series against Australia was unfortunately cancelled, but Bangladesh haven't played a Test for fourteen months, since a washout in Mirpur against South Africa, after they threatened to beat the Proteas in Chittagong. History tells us to be wary of the Bangladesh weather.




FIVE MEMORABLE PERFORMANCES. Richard Johnson: 5-49 & 4-44, Chittagong, November 2003.


If at times the games held in the UK have seemed uncompetitive, the two Asian series have taken some winning by England, and the home side have shown resistance. In the first Test between the countries at Dhaka, Bangladesh took wickets well enough, but struggled to post a total. England gave debuts to Gareth Batty and Rikki Clarke (Flintoff was injured) in the first Test. The series came just before the great year of 2004, but the team was still a little transitional: Chris Read came back into the eleven after Alec Stewart's retirement; Hussain and Butcher were coming to the end of their time in the national side; and the legendary bowling attack was not quite settled.

In the second Test, Martin Saggers made his debut for Steve Harmison, and Richard Johnson replaced Batty in a four man pace attack selected for an underprepared pitch. Johnson had been a late call up for the injured James Anderson. It was a bowlers pitch so credit to Trescothick, Vaughan, Clarke, Thorpe and Hussain for their fifties (the difficulty is suggested by Hussain claiming to the press that this was his toughest Test innings...). But it's Johnson's performance that stays in my memory, taking nine wickets in the match in the middle of his three Tests which yielded him 16 wickets at 17.2. For a while it seemed he might emerge as the fourth member of the England pace attack. But his recurrent back injury ended that, even if Simon Jones hadn't returned from his own injury.

At Chittagong, England won by 329 runs. They lost by a single defeat to Murali in Galle later in the winter, one of only a pair of series defeat between the Ashes losses of 2002-3 and 2006-7. It was the best time to be an England follower I can remember, and their debut series in Bangladesh gained interest from that developing narrative, an episode in the creation myth of Duncan Fletcher's gathering great England team.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64053.html
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:33 pm

FIVE MEMORABLE PERFORMANCES. Ian Bell, 162*, Chester-le-Street, June 2005.

If England left Bangladesh in 2003 reflecting on the close thing they had survived, a pair of home Tests starting in late May 2005 proved to be no contest at all. At Lord's and the Riverside, Bangladesh's first innings scores were 108 and 104. Considering only eighteen months had passed, their team had evolved considerably, as it tended to do. Whereas England were coming to a peak. The legendary four man pace attack was established. On receiving his Player of the Match reward at the Riverside, Matthew Hoggard commented he had bowled like a trollop. Later in the summer they stunned the great Australians. In spring they were far too good for Bangladesh.

England showed few cards in their victory. Simon Jones only took five wickets and struggled to get hold of the ball, but gave hope to those looking for premonitions for the summer ahead with some impressive swing, too good for the Bangladeshi lads. Ashley Giles was injured but there was little call for Gareth Batty's off spin, and he took only a single wicket. And down to come in at six, Andrew Flintoff didn't get to the middle, with Marcus Trescothick batting twice for 345 runs.

But apart from the staggering threat of Harmison, Jones, Flintoff and Hoggard, what stays most is the passing of Graham Thorpe and the emergence of Ian Bell. They batted together for 187 unbeaten runs at a sold out Riverside. Thorpe the fading pragmatist. Bell, the emerging stylist. Thorpe deflecting almost exclusively to leg, and dealing mainly in singles and twos. Bell, scoring around the ground, most emphatically through point. And hitting the boundary frequently, most memorably with his only six over long off, Michael Vaughan responding with a pout and a clenched bicep on the England balcony. There is a case that Thorpe made way a series too early. The poignancy of the great Surrey fighter being eclipsed by the strokes of the 23 year old Bell was hard to miss. A few weeks later the England selectors towed the veteran of many overseas campaigns out of the harbour, and scuttled him.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/210366.html
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Wed Nov 16, 2016 2:58 pm

FIVE MEMORABLE PERFORMANCES. James Tredwell, 2-99 & 4-82, Mirpur, March 2010.

England's meetings with Bangladesh have a habit of featuring, almost incidentally, at interesting times. The series in 2010 came after England's decline had bottomed out with an unexpected Ashes win in 2009, and an unbelievable draw in South Africa. The two Tests in Bangladesh were England's first in Asia since the rather untidy defeat in Sri Lanka in 2007. Andy Flower was still fairly new in the job, but had banked a great deal of goodwill after improved performances. Alastair Cook took charge of his first game as England captain in Chittagong (Andrew Strauss and James Anderson missed the tour), a game on which Wisden commented upon his unusual habit of not maintaining catchers for his seamers.

And in a pattern to be duplicated during future trips to Asia, Andy Flower went into the first Test with three seamers and a spinner on a sleepy pitch with nothing for the quicker bowlers. Graeme Swann was bowled until his elbow ached in Chittagong, taking ten wickets for the first time for England. Bell, Cook (2) and Collingwood scored tons in the two Tests, and Pietersen averaged 83. Tim Bresnan scored a 91, his Test best. It was a hard tour for bowlers and the Bangladesh batters were nearly as hard to shift. England had only taken two spinners on tour, both off spinners. In the second Test, with an air of there being no alternative, James Tredwell came into the XI, Matt Prior moving up to six, England retaining three seamers. The spinners did most of the work again though, with Tredwell taking six on his debut.

Tredwell's second Test was in Antigua five years later when he took 5-140 in the match. His career Test bowling average over two games is 29.2.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/426424.html
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby sussexpob » Wed Nov 16, 2016 5:09 pm

Thanks for the post, Arthur.

That Chester-le-street test will always live on negatively, as I personally thought it was bang out of order how England jettisoned their best player of the last 15 years with such a ruthless distain. Although no one utters it, there was a case post 2000 (most definately between 2001- to retirement) that Graeme Thorpe could be considered the best player in the world, certainly in the top handful of batters. He was consistently world class, and his tour to Sri Lanka in 2001 lives in the same sphere as Lara's 99 series v Australia in my mind.

Is there any co-incidence that after 2005 and Thorpe's retirement, England failed to beat Sri Lanka, India, South Africa in successive years at home? We were told Thorpe had to go because he couldnt take long tours due to his back, but even at home England struggled in that immediate three years, Vaughan was shot, Bell really didnt click till 2009 by memory, Flintoff had peaked and was on the way down, Tresco had his issues, Strauss was arguably never the same player after that series.....

If only we had allowed Thorpie to pick and choose his tours to sit his body, we might have been far more successful in that period. He certainly deserved it for me.

And they robbed us of the KP/Thorpe partnership.... what a middle order combo that would have been to watch full flow.
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Wed Nov 16, 2016 5:42 pm

Amazing that this was only one year after Thorpe's great innings in Barbados. At least in this period he established a highly respected reputation among England supporters. I'm not sure he's rated overseas that much.
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Dr Cricket » Wed Nov 16, 2016 7:24 pm

Sorry for my ignorance but was Thorpe a pretty batsman to watch. That generally the key to being rated overseas that or scoring match winning runs.
Surprised Thorpe not rated much in Sri Lanka but then again I generally found that unless runs are scored in India, Australia, England or SA people generally don't recognise batsman or players.

Don't actually remember Thorpe much which is odd since that Sri Lanka tour was my first series I watch or close to being it, still remember my dad lied to my mum saying sky sports was free and I stayed up till midnight to watch the highlight to the game.

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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:12 pm

Probably the most memorable performances of the return series of 2010 were by Tamim Iqbal, who scored run a ball hundreds at Lord's and Old Trafford (plus another fifty) after batting well in the home leg. Apparently, asked why he adapted better than his colleagues to the English conditions, he answered "I work harder". But having focused almost entirely on England, I may as well continue.

FIVE MEMORABLE PERFORMANCES. Ajmal Shahzad, 3-45 & 1-18, Manchester, June 2010.

If England won the early season Tests of 2010 with plenty to spare, Bangladesh were obstinate for the first three innings of the series at least. Tamim proved a whole lot more, and the 21 year old opener flayed all the England bowlers. England's win at Lord's was built around Jonathan Trott's highest Test score of 226 and nine wickets for Steven Finn who had a strong series replacing an injured Stuart Broad. Trott's runs were especially welcome as, after his superb Ashes debut at the Oval in 09 , he ran into a mostly successful hail of bouncers in South Africa. He would be very prolific later in the summer against Pakistan.

In the second Test in Manchester, Yorkshire's Ajmal Shahzad won his first and last England caps with an extremely impressive, if brief demonstration of very fast swing, both ways, with new and old ball. It was one of those strange, slightly unreal, ectopic performances that have happened regularly in games between the sides. Three times in the case of Gareth Batty. Like the other England bowlers, Shahzad got spanked around by Tamim at first, but returned with three wickets in 16 balls in the first innings.

Shahzad had played in the ODIs in Bangladesh and would later look the best of England's bowlers in a shocking ODI series in Australia in 2011, before limping out of a World Cup he had started impressively. And he never played for England again. It wasn't so much that he gave a Player of the Match performance in his only Test, but that he looked so damn lethal. His style, and pace and potential put many in mind of Simon Jones. Sadly, his career most resembled Jones' for his many and frequent injuries.

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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:18 pm

bhaveshgor wrote:Sorry for my ignorance but was Thorpe a pretty batsman to watch. That generally the key to being rated overseas that or scoring match winning runs.
Surprised Thorpe not rated much in Sri Lanka but then again I generally found that unless runs are scored in India, Australia, England or SA people generally don't recognise batsman or players.

Don't actually remember Thorpe much which is odd since that Sri Lanka tour was my first series I watch or close to being it, still remember my dad lied to my mum saying sky sports was free and I stayed up till midnight to watch the highlight to the game.


He was very adaptable. He scored a double ton in NZ which will still be one of the top five fastest ever. Yet he was a nurdler at times, probably the adjective most often associated with him. Good cutter and puller, fine off his legs. Was an attractive driver, but didn't always use the shot.

I picked his batting in Colombo as my favourite this century by an England player, in a top ten I compiled. I'll see if I can find it.... You could bat with your pads in those days...
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:19 pm

Not pretty no.
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:30 pm

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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Arthur Crabtree » Sun Nov 20, 2016 8:41 pm

Which brings us up to the present. And the end of England's record of unblemished success against Bangladesh. Again the leading player on either side was Tamim Iqbal, who, on pitches curated to help the spinners, made the only hundred of the series and far outscored anyone else. In years to come it might be that we remember the contest for the debut of nineteen year old Mehedi Hasan Miraz for his 19 wickets, taken at a strike rate of one every 35 balls.

For England, the most likely candidate for any future curiosity for their brief Test career, following Johnson, Tredwell and Shahzad, is Zafar Ansari, though let us hope not. But he wouldn't qualify as a memorable performance for his unremarkable debut. Almost certainly that would be likely future stalwart (injury permitting) Ben Stokes, who was the best of the England pace bowlers with his six wickets in the narrow victory in Chittagong, and for his mature 85 with the bat. And wiping out the last two wickets with the old ball, with Bangladesh just 23 runs from a first victory against England- which was deferred for just one week.

And with their success came the goodwill that it might prove a breakthrough for their side and better fortunes wait up ahead. Certainly no side will complacently visit Chittagong and Dhaka in the near future. In a small way, the series was an end of an era.
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Re: Touching from a Distance: England v Bangladesh.

Postby Dr Cricket » Mon Nov 21, 2016 11:01 am

Don't forget to add the point that Bangladesh are a very poor team and no one should lose to them. :lol:
And that England are now a poor team to actually lose to a very poor team.

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