Noble peace prizes for all 11 I'd say. Glad my father in law paid for my tickets too! As a side note, I suddenly had 5 hours that had been planned for totally now free .... so my conspiracy analytics have gone in overdrive since after the game and so sitting with some roadside chaiwallahs, here is as far as we got ....
Seriously knowledgeable, objective and neutral cricket commentators like Ganguly, Atherton and Lloyd ridiculed Kenya's scores of 112 and 69 as having lowered the prestige of this 'World Cup'. So where does that leave Bangladesh's innings of 59?
Well firstly, its complicated by the fact that they are now a test nation as well as co-host of this years tournament. And this honour was given in part because Bangladesh should now be treated as part of the 'grown up' family (and perform like one, on of off the pitch). Talk of it being a 'minnow' is simply are not true anymore; the team has some degree of genuine talent with players like Tamim, Saqib, Kayes, the enigma that is Ashraful and bowlers like Shafiul and the absent Mortoza.
So is a team of Kenya's ability is struggling to hit 100 (which is rightly deemed as unacceptable for such a prestige performance), then a team of Bangladesh's capability must surely have a negative base line that must be higher. Peter Schiemical often says that his definition of a players class is to judge his lowest capable performance and see if that is noticed by his team mates. Whenever Paul Scholes (or in the old days Bryan Robson) had a bad game, it was unnoticeable as he had simply dropped to a level of most other players playing at their best.
As a test playing nation full of 'professional' cricketers who are on central contracts playing in home conditions, in front in what has rightly been applauded as possible the best most passionately vocal supporters in world cricket, Bangladesh's base line for its worst performance simply has to be higher than scoring 59. It just has to be. Else, how can they be deemed as 'professional'. A professional by definitions promises you a certain lowest form of acceptability. Bangladesh's is surly higher that playing in a game expected to end at 10pm but the suddenly all over by 430pm!
So if its not ability, then what other factors? A few come to mind. The first is this side a virtually no mental discipline and so the players crumble under even the faintest of pressure, most of the is imaginary only in their won minds. But surely that cant affect all 11 players at the same time as it did today?
Perhaps the game was compromised in some way through irregular financial arrangements. But given the extra vigilance exerted by the authorities since the Pakistan trio were rumbled in the recent England tour, it would make such a thing very difficult to pull of. And even then, if you were going to throw a game, would you really make it so obvious?!
My last possible scenario is team inter-dynamics. I remember back to the 1998 Football World Cup Final where France played Brazil in Paris. Before the game, news got out that there was a selection dilemma on whether to played Brazils legendary striker Ronaldo who was clearly unfit. Brazils President and Nike's global CEO both put pressure on the coach to include Ronaldo, the coach though otherwise and so in the hours leading up the game of a lifetime, the Brazil dressing room was noisy with international telephone calls, in fighting and divisions. Soon players took sides, the arguments got fiercer and sometimes violent. In the end, the coach was ordered by his national president to play Ronaldo or be sacked on the spot. That is the mindset the Brazil team took onto the field when they went out to play. As you will remember, they were comprehensively thrashed 3-0 with Zizou scoring twice.
So my last hypothesis is that perhaps the mother of all arguments have been raging within Team Bangladesh these past few days. Maybe some player has slept with the wife of another or one has been insulted by another (Bangladeshi's are renowned for their irrational and volatile emotions), and that has gotten the entire embroiled. Maybe a few have been caught with prostitutes and shitting themselves that the story will break (As United fans, we know how that one goes), maybe some of them are about to be exposed for corruption charges ..... whatever it was, its plausible that the team have not had there minds of the job, zero mental preparation had taken place and they wee just not unified strongly enough to deliver any kind of performance and in doing so have reduced their won prestige as well as that of the tournament.
Whatever it was, and I look forward to hearing the multitude of hypotheses that will be discussed in the days ahead, I think its far more complicated and sinister than captain Sakib's lame explanation that 'It was just not our day today'. Sorry Sakib, just not good enough. Your card has been well and truly numbered.
