Bangladesh cricket- a pan Bengal tribute

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Ashis Biswas, Kolkata
Published : 09:31, Jun 21, 2019 | Updated : 13:24, Jun 21, 2019

Cricket - ICC Cricket World Cup - West Indies v Bangladesh - The County Ground, Taunton, Britain - June 17, 2019 Bangladesh`s Soumya Sarkar in action Action Images via ReutersIt’s a fact that West Bengal-based sports enthusiasts are, as the saying goes, over the moon when it comes to talking about the performance of Bangladesh in 2019 World cup cricket tournament.  Recent victories of the somewhat under- the- radar Bangladesh cricketers against the mighty  West Indies and South Africa teams have left admiring Bengalis in Kolkata and elsewhere in India cheering spontaneously!

Says Chayan Datta, engineering consultant settled in the US and currently visiting his home town Kolkata,`can’t find words to describe Shakib Al Hasan’s performance… what a player! It is great to see that after Sourav Ganguly, we have another Bengali player who has made a name for himself at the highest levels of the sport… the Bangladeshis have really done us all proud!’ He had been watching the S. Africa /Bangladesh game being shown on a large screen TV in a South Kolkata café with his friends, who heartily agreed with him.

Prabhat Mishra, a former sports journalist in a major Bangla daily of Kolkata, puts the matter in perspective. ‘There was a time when Bangladesh was really the minnows of cricket, in the 70s and 80s, even in the South Asian context. Teams like Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka were simply too strong for them. Many of us argued that even as a team Bangladesh those days be rolled over by strong teams like Mohun Bagan or East Bengal in the local cricket league……… they could compete on level terms with teams like Sporting Union, Kalighat  and so on.’

 Mishra continues, ‘But now look where they are, competing in the  50 over cricket World Cup and beating much bigger teams including India as well,  at that level …It is not just Shakib, there are also Tamim, Mustafizur, Soumya and  Liton…   I get a special thrill when I hear their wicket-keeper occasionally shout, 'Ak, ak…' in Bangla as he urges upon a fielder no to concede too many runs…

That’s my language he is talking out there, whether at Lord’s or the Oval, the Mecca of cricket…. along with English, Punjabi, Marathi, and bits of Afrikaner… shouldn’t we be proud?’

For West Bengalis, there is the sad realization that even as neighbouring Bangladesh has gone from strength to strength in cricket, Kolkata has not done too well in recent years, whether in cricket or football. It is not for lack of resources. In terms of their support base and financial clout, the Cricket Association of Bengal, clubs like Mohun Bagan or East Bengal do not lack funds.  If Bangladesh could hire good coaches like Sunil Joshi or Mohinder Amarnath among others, there had been men like Sanjay Bangar, Arun Lal and Ashok Malhotra to help Bengal cricket.

Yet, after the spectacular success achieved by Sourav Ganguly, Wriddhiman Saha and Ashok Dinda could only partially fulfill their promise playing at the highest levels of the game,  as injuries and other problems affected their performance.  Deep Dasgupta’s case is more unfortunate in that many felt he merited better consideration from the national selectors, especially after scoring a century against the deadly battery of South African pacers on their home turf.

Sourav Ganguly - The Prince of CalcuttaOtherwise, there is not much of any ‘happening story’ in West Bengal cricket as of now. Players like Sudip Chatterjee, Debabrata Das and a couple of others have played the occasional good knock in one-day cricket or in Ranji Trophy matches, but have not been as consistent or dependable as their competitors playing for Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Karnataka, Delhi or Haryana,  Maharashtra or Mumbai!  

So for the time being, there is not much else for the average West Bengal cricket enthusiast to do, except to turn cheerleaders for the present Bangladesh team. On balance again, this is not entirely negative. Too many Kolkatans recall their Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi or Tamil friends hooting in derision in the 80s and 90s when Bangladesh teams got trounced routinely in tests or one-day matches by most rivals, whether at home or elsewhere. Sports correspondents often left the job of ‘covering’ such matches to their juniors if Bangladesh played in India or got their reports from the new agencies.

‘There was nothing personal is all this… nobody targeted you as a Bengali and Bangladesh teams were certainly no match for their stronger opponents those days. …Yet somehow, somewhere, there was a sad, if repressed, feeling among us Kolkata journalists who happened to be working with our other Indian press colleagues …. their running down of Bangladesh cricket hurt us too, along with newsmen who had come over from Dhaka or Chittagong,’ recalls Mishra.

His face briefly lights up as he delivers the clincher,’ But not nowadays, thank God, that does not happen ………not anymore!’

/srj/
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