Bangladesh vs India 1st ODI

So I did wake up at 4.30am - but shortly thereafter fell asleep with the tv left on in low volume - the recipe for a few cricket flavoured dreams. Woke up once more at 6am to discover the Bangladesh position wasn't as disastrous as I had seen in my dreams.

Anyway a score of 250 was a very good effort by the Bangladesh team. They managed to construct a ODI innings as one is meant to. It was quite healthy to see Bangladesh approach the final ten overs with Ashraful and Aftab Ahmad to come. If luck favoured these two a little more, than we may have seen an unpassable target of 260.

Where did Bangladesh lose it?

I don't think in the batting. 250 is a decent score, particularly for Bangladesh - forget the dismissals of Tamim Iqbal and Bashar. Only with Australia (on current form), does team batting go exactly to plan.

They missed Mortaza. Without him, India were able to give their innings the impetus that ultimately provided sufficient a cushion for Dhoni & Kartik to be able to chase down the target later on.

Shahadat Hossain - this is the first time i've seen him. He looks good but needs to learn consistency of line and length to begin with - then how to extract movement off the pitch. He has all the raw materials and more so than say a Mohammad Asif - so I hope he strives to become worldclass rather than Bangladesh test-team class.

Now we come to the three SLAs. Sometimes they look like magicians weaving a web. Today they started off so - but when teams realise they don't spin it sharply, and batsmen get in and stay in - then the runs start to flow. The key is not to lose it when in for a new batsman will then come in and before you know it another few overs will be bowled in no time for minimal runs. That is how I think the 3 SLA approach has worked those couple of times during the world cup, and almost in today's match.

If only BD had a decent 6th bowler who could bowl something different than SLA. That's what is missing for now, in my opinion.

Habibul Bashar's captaincy (not outstanding but not bad) not withstanding, I would love to be able to fit Shahriar Nafees into this side. Hopefully by the next ODI series.

Saquib al Hassan is my Bangladeshi player of the day today. A word must go out to Javed Omar also. He surprised me with some late innings aggression. Sometimes I've thought of him as an individual rather than a team player. Plenty more innings like today and I will change my mind.