da betway： Jamie Siddons, Bangladesh’s coach, was expecting to be whitewashed byPakistan, but said he can take a few positives such as the batting of Shakib al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah
Osman Samiuddin19-Apr-2008
Shakib Al Hasan’s batting has been one of the bright spots in a dismal tour for Bangladesh © AFP
Jamie Siddons, Bangladesh’s coach, was expecting to be whitewashed byPakistan, but said he can take a few positives out of this series.Bangladesh were competitive in only two of the five matches, losing thelast ODI in Karachi by 150 runs.”Realistically I came here thinking we might lose 5-0,” said Siddons. “Youguys might think that is negative thinking but I think it is realistic. Iknow where we stand, where we are and where we need to get.”Most of the positives were to be found in Bangladesh’s batting, whereShakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah Riad flickered, though not asoften as Siddons would have liked. “I’m disappointed in the last two gameswhere our top four kept letting us down badly. We’re very disappointedwith that.”But we can take something from this. We made 200 three times in thisseries and we haven’t done that against Pakistan. We’ll take that, we’lltake Shakib’s hundred, a couple of innings from Tamim and Mahmudullah aswell. Mashrafe (Mortaza) was world class for us through the series.”Mohammad Ashraful, Bangladesh’s captain, had a miserable series, endingwith only 81 runs. A couple of other top-order batsmen also failed tofire, prompting Siddons to highlight the failures of top players. “Some ofthe big names were disappointing for us and that didn’t help. We stillcan’t bowl sides out and we still don’t make 250-260 consistently. Butwe’ve got some good guys out there and in a couple of years we can makesomething of them.”Though Siddons was happier with his batting performance, he might takeobjection to Shoaib Malik’s assessment of their skills. Malik, Pakistan’scaptain, was celebrating an 11th successive ODI win, thus beatingPakistan’s previous most successful run of 10 matches under Imran Khan andJaved Miandad in 1990.”If you compare them to Zimbabwe who we played earlier, I think Zimbabwe’sbatting was better than Bangladesh’s,” said Malik. “They batted accordingto the match situation whereas Bangladesh attack from the start. There isonly a small difference between the two sides.”The whitewash was helped considerably by a record-breaking performancefrom Salman Butt, who made two hundreds and two fifties in the series. The451 runs he scored was a record of sorts, going past Mohammad Yousuf asthe scorer of most runs in a five-match bilateral series. But Malik saidButt’s wasn’t a lone hand.”Butt was superb for us through the series, but I would say the entireteam did well. Shahid Afridi took 12 wickets as well and others performedfor us. Ultimately, it is great to break the most wins record. Winningagainst any team is winning so we’re proud of that, but the credit for itgoes to all the players.”Pakistan now prepare for a tri-series in Bangladesh before hosting theAsia Cup and ICC Champions Trophy later in the season. “We are trying tocreate competition for our players, in opening, in the middle order andbowling as well. We want to have a pool of players, all picked on theirperformance because we have some tough tournaments ahead.”