‘Pressure lets me give back to my team’

Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha acknowledged the arduous challenge of facing the Afghanistan bowling attack but pointed out that the familiarity of facing the Afghans in recent encounters will help the Tigers' cause. 

Bangladesh take on Afghanistan in Lahore on Sunday in their second and final group-stage fixture of the Asia Cup in a must-win contest in order to stay in contention for qualification to the second round.

The Tigers got their Asia Cup campaign off to a dismal start as they succumbed to a five-wicket loss against Sri Lanka on Thursday. 

"This game is very important because of what happened in the last game against Sri Lanka. We know that it's a must-win game. We certainly didn't play to our potential in the last game and we didn't represent ourselves well enough but we are confident that we will bring our A-game against Afghanistan tomorrow," Hathurusingha told the reporters on Saturday.

Hathurusingha deemed the Afghanistan bowling attack as one of the best in the world as he singled out two of the spinners, expectedly Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Ur Rahman, as being world-class.

"The Afghanistan bowling attack is one of the best in the world. It's definitely a challenge but we have played them recently and our players had some success. So it all depends on how you perform on the day. We are very much aware of the challenges that we have to face.

"As I said before, they have one of the best bowling attacks in world cricket, especially in limited-over cricket. They got two world-class spinners and decent seamers. We are well aware of their threat because we played them recently in T20Is and ODIs," he said.

Simply stating that we are a cricket-loving nation does not do justice to our passion for the sport. From the gentleman's game being played out in the street to the cricket field being brought into mobile phones in the form of apps and games, our relationship with the game runs deep. Even living in a concrete jungle does not stop us from enjoying our favourite sport. Be it a patch of the alley, a garage, a corridor, or even a rooftop, we make it our glorious cricket ground and our field has its own set of rules.

These radical laws of street cricket have emerged out of sheer practicality and the interesting dynamics of the cricketers in the street — and hence, the unwritten rules of the 'Code of Street Cricket'.

Photo: Collected / Simon Reza / Unsplash

Hit too hard - and you're out! 

The makeshift cricket field is small, often surrounded by buildings. And not everyone in those buildings is cheering the batter or rooting for a whopper.

The batter, therefore, has to be very calculative with the stroke. All players verbally agree at the beginning of the game that if a batter lands the ball in certain areas from where it cannot be recouped or hits a glass window, he is out.

This golden rule often comes with a sub-clause; landing the ball in areas recognised only as 'moderately dangerous' involves a batter being 'half-out'; so, two 'half-outs' and you are gone!

On matters of skirmishes

They say cricket is a gentleman's game. They should look into street cricket.

Players sometimes break into heated arguments: "Wasn't that a no-ball? It was a run-out for sure! How can this be wide?" And so on...

While many conflicts do not have set solutions and require lawyer-level skills from both teams, certain problems are resolved easily.

For starters, there's no such thing as LBW (for obvious reasons).  Another conflict is based on the impatience for batting first. You do not want to wait and field for a long time. You want to bat! But so does every other player.

A solution involves the batting order being decided by lottery. A player goes to a corner away from others, writes numbers (one to five if there are five players, for example), draws out a line corresponding to each number, and then hides those numbers with the bat.

The rest of the players are then called to randomly choose. The bat is then removed, and the cricketers are bound to agree on the sequence!

This approach is often accompanied by a distinctive format of the game. Each team is a one-man army and gets to bat for a certain number of overs (if he remains not out), and the winner is the one who scores the highest runs.

The case of the 'common man'

At least one umpire is desirable. But strange as it may sound, the umpire in street cricket is a temporary role filled in by one of the players who is done with batting or is still waiting for his/her turn.

It is a role that can best be described as symbolic, as his/her authority can be questioned by the bowling team in the slightest case of suspicion.

Meanwhile, what if the total sum of players is an odd number? To resolve this dilemma, one player may be employed to play for both teams!

This odd player, who evens out both sides — let's call him the 'common man' — may be a junior chap or a novice player deemed as a liability.

He has yet to prove himself; becoming a game-changer in one match is what he needs!       

Photo: Collected / tazain bin alam / Unsplash

DIY crafts

The replacement of the cricket ball with a tennis ball is commonplace. If that gets too boring, just get a tape and wrap around the ball for a better substitute.  

When the concrete field does not allow you to affix the wicket, get a brick, make three holes in it, and then place the stumps. No proper wicket? No problem. Get a pile of bricks or any other object with similar dimensions. Not available? Just draw a set on the wall.  

For a team sadly without the affordability to buy a bat, wooden planks are still shaped out to work as a makeshift one.

Be it lack of money or space, nothing stops the cricket fans from playing their sport, innovating rules, making up formats and coming up with alternative equipment and gear.

Such is our love for cricket!

Bangladesh take on Australia in their first T20 World Cup Super 8 fixture at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua on Friday.

Highlights

*Australia have six wins to their name against Bangladesh's four in 10 T20Is. All four of the Tigers' victories came in Mirpur.

*Bangladesh have never beaten Australia in the T20 World Cup, losing in five meetings.

*Average first innings total at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium is 118. Pacers and spinners have had similar experiences at the venue as both have conceded runs at less than seven an over. In this T20 World Cup, however, spinners have conceded more, 8.45 runs an over, than pacers (7.74).

*Bangladesh pacer Tanzim Hasan Sakib has taken seven wickets in the Powerplay, joint-most with Afghanistan Fazalhaq Farooqi for most scalps taken in the first six overs in the tournament. Meanwhile, Mustafizur Rahman's 67 dot balls is the joint-most in the group-stage of the tournament alongside New Zealand's Lockie Ferguson.

*At the batting front, Marcus Stoinis (10) and Travis Head (9) both are in the top five for most sixes hit in the edition so far. Towhid Hridoy is in the top 10 with six maximums.

*Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib, who will be on a hattrick whenever he comes to bowl against Australia, needs one wicket to become the first player to take 50 wickets in T20 World Cup history. He is also two wickets away from becoming only the second player after Tim Southee (164) to take 150 scalps in the format.

Bangladesh will look to improve and get a victory against Afghanistan in the second FIFA friendly match at the Bashundhara Kings Arena today, with the match kicking off 5:00pm.

The two sides are playing the FIFA friendly matches as preparation for October's pre-qualifiers of the World Cup and Asian Cup, and both teams are focused on fine-tuning their squads and finalising strategies.

The first match ended in a 1-1 draw with both sides creating a few of chances but none of them could take those home. Both sides were seemingly satisfied with sharing the spoils of a draw, but both coached want to end the two-match series on high note by winning the second match.

"We are in the process to prepare and improve as much as we can to play against Maldives and we need to do it which is a must. Obviously, we will be focusing on the improvement and hopefully winning the match too," Bangladesh coach Javier Cabrera told reporters.