‘Need pitches like this in domestic cricket’

Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal expressed dissatisfaction over the difference in the wickets that Bangladesh have played their recent home Tests on and the ones the players ply their trade on in domestic cricket.

Before the Test series against Australia, much of the talk about Bangladesh's chances of pulling off an upset centred round the wicket. After all, the Tigers had nearly won a series against England last year – falling agonisingly short on a Chittagong dustbowl before winning handsomely on a Mirpur crumbler. 

So it was all too easy to think that those kinds of wickets will provide the same advantage over touring sides. For Tamim, who scored 78 runs of attrition in Bangladesh's second innings and helped set up a target of 265, the pitch advantage was not as clear cut as many believe.

"My question is, how many times do we get to play on these wickets in domestic cricket?" an animated Tamim asked the pressmen at the post-day ceremony in Mirpur. "We only play on these wickets in international matches, because it gives us an advantage over the foreign side. We are busy with grassy wickets in domestic cricket, although we never play on those in international matches at home."

These comments are grounded in reality, because even though Bangladesh dominated England in the two-Test series last October and bossed the game in the first two days of the current Test, the advantage has only been comparative, rather than absolute. That is because Bangladesh's batsmen, with the notable exception of Tamim himself as he has three half-centuries and a century in the last three home Tests, are almost as vulnerable to the conditions as the tourists. 

On the third day, they went from 186 for five to 221 all out as Australia off-spinner Nathan Lyon picked up six wickets. In the first innings on Sunday, Ashton Agar and Lyon picked up three apiece as Bangladesh collapsed from 188 for four to 260 all out.  

There has been a clamouring for more grassy wickets to better prepare the Bangladesh side for when they tour beyond the subcontinent, but not much of a focus on playing on wickets that will maximise the home advantage.  

"This thinking has to change. We tour once in two years in places where we confront grassy wickets. I feel that if we want to play international matches in these surfaces, we should do the same in domestic cricket. So that those who are new will enter the side already habituated to the surface. And also for the spinners , it's not as if a spinner will come on here and automatically start getting batsmen out. He has to have some experience of playing on such surfaces. At least one or two grounds should have these wickets so that it creates a habit," Tamim added.