How a weak Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Ireland spells death for cricket

Another Test match has come and gone and yet again, the Bangladesh cricket team has failed to make a mark. The one-off Test against India ended in a rain-enforced draw, but not before the the Bangladeshis were thoroughly hounded and harassed by their mighty opponents, and one could well imagine what the result would have been had the match not been curtailed. Bangladesh was listless right from its team selection to its cricket, hardly looking the part in the big league.

However, this precisely has been the sorry tale of Bangladesh in Test cricket since it was given the keys, a bit prematurely, to the elite club in 2000. In a decade-and-a-half since, the "Tigers", as the Bangladesh team is fondly called, have done a gross injustice to the majestic striped feline and if anything, turned out to be toothless and clawless "tigers", losing 71 of the 91 Tests that they have ever played.

But why has the Bangladesh team not been able to rise to the next level even after so many years? Being a subcontinental team, Bangladesh has had a cricket culture; the game is not alien to the people of the country and so, you would imagine, it would not take much for its players to learn the ropes. Moreover, there is no dearth of popular enthusiasm, craze and support for cricket in the country. So there ideally would not be any reason for the game to not develop in the country and indeed, flourish.

However, if you delve deeper, you would realise that the real problem lies in the fact that the big boys of the game have raised their standards to a dizzying level through years of refinement and Bangladesh is still an infant, as it were, in terms of the length of time it has spent in the intimidating world of Test cricket, and hence, is finding it difficult to come up to scratch. It has given a better account of itself in limited over versions of the game, wherein it has surprised top oppositions from time to time. But when it comes to the highest form of the game - Test cricket - in which a player's abilities and temperament are put to the sternest test, Bangladesh invariably comes a cropper.

Now, can the high and mighty of cricket afford to let teams like Bangladesh languish in darkness? Do they perhaps feel that "minnows" should be around to be bullied? Does it give them a chance to marvel at their own virility? If it does, that sense of satisfaction can't be hollower. The satisfaction would be greater to slay a team that fights tooth and nail for the last inch of territory than one that surrenders meekly. The cricket world is in crying need for more competitiveness and globalisation.

Unlike football, serious cricket has a woefully narrow reach, for all purposes, being restricted to the top eight teams of the world (leaving out Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, who though are Test playing nations, don't really pass muster). Cricket is not an Olympic discipline and has remained elitist and exclusivist. Hence, achievements in cricket don't immediately resonate in all corners of the world, neither do they carry the same degree of fullness as does those in football. So while a World Cup in football is one in the real sense, that in cricket is really a sham, in which the top few teams have their places for granted and the Associate teams are there only to make up the numbers.

There is a need to pull up the latter to a level where they can challenge the smug existence of the elite eight. So we need more occasions of the smaller teams knocking out fancied oppositions from competitions. As the game gets more competitive, there is bound to be an upgrade in the overall standard.

Globalisation has been one of the aims of the International Cricket Council (ICC). However, the world cricket body has been more about vision and less about action. The best it did to globalise the game was probably to have more Associate teams participating in World Cups. So if there were three non-Test playing teams in the 1996 World Cup, there were six in the 2007 World Cup that had never played Test cricket. However, the problem with this approach is that World Cups are quadrennial events and the non-Test playing nations end up with hardly any quality cricket in the intervening period.

The ICC, therefore, has to be more proactive if it has to make globalisation of cricket a reality. The four-day first class Intercontinental Cup, featuring eight Associate teams is being billed as the "pathway to Test cricket" for these teams and the team winning the round-robin tournament will play the bottom-ranked Test nation (as on December 31, 2017) on a home and away basis in a four-match challenge during 2018. If the Associate member wins that series, it will stand a chance to become the newest Test nation. Though this initiative is commendable, pitchforking a team into the Test world without proper preparation would be akin to throwing it to the wolves. If the experience of Bangladesh is anything to go by, the ICC may be well advised to help a team raise its standard before debuting in Tests. So for instance, the domestic cricket infrastructure of an Associate nation needs to be upgraded; better and adequate training facilities are to be provided, the domestic leagues are to be made more competitive, expert coaches are to be employed, the stadia and pitches must be world class. All these would involve huge financial implication, which may be beyond the capacity of the cricket boards of the Associate nations. Here the ICC must step in, and so also must an enormously rich body like the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

The Associate nations must face world class oppositions on a regular basis. Though the Associate nations may not be able to engage the elite eight in an even contest right away, the top cricketing nations could have their "A" sides playing the Associates more often. Also they could consider having players from the Associate teams represent their domestic league sides. Thus for instance, the Ranji sides in India can have players from say, the Netherlands, Ireland, Afghanistan or Scotland representing them. This will really be a win-win situation, and while the players from the Associate nations will benefit from being part of a tough overseas league, it would give more options for the Ranji sides and it would make the tournament more interesting. Alternatively, the Associate nations can be invited to play in the domestic leagues of the top cricketing nations.

It is beyond doubt that players like Ed Joyce, Niall O'Brien and Kevin O'Brien of Ireland who have put up sparkling performances in World Cups have gained hugely from their county cricket experience.

The ICC had missed an opportunity to groom a promising Kenya into a decent cricketing nation. On the other hand, Zimbabwe, which was a real giant-killer during the days of the Flower brothers, Murray Goodwin, Neil Johnson, Heath Streak and Alistair Campbell, fell into difficult times following the resignation and exodus of a number of its top players. One can't readily remember what the ICC did to steer Zimbabwean cricket out of troubled waters.

It is this bleak future as a player of a lesser cricket nation which perhaps compelled the best player in the Netherlands' cricket history, Ryan ten Doeschate to refuse to be a part of the country's World T20 qualifiers in 2012 citing "other cricket commitments". For ten Doeschate, who plies his trade around the world, the "other cricket commitments" are more lucrative monetarily and career-wise and it hardly evokes surprise.

The ICC must work to ensure that talented players like ten Doeschate take pride in representing their nations, and for that, the foundation of the structure of the game in the lesser cricketing countries must be made strong. Only then can cricket be truly globalised. Till then Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and the likes will continue to be the "whipping boys" of the game.