'A lot to work on'

With no prior warning, it seems Bangladesh cricket has recently entered a poor run of form for both the senior and junior sides.

The Tigers faced a brutal 2-0 thrashing in the just concluded Test series against South Africa while the Bangladesh Under-19 team also received a major blow when they lost the five-match series at home against Afghanistan Under-19 3-1.

There have been all sorts of post-mortems to find the reason begin a disappointing performance from Bangladesh in South Africa but at the same time, the U-19 team's defeat is also note worthy.

The loss to the Afghans has raised many questions over the preparations for the upcoming ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in New Zealand next year along with the Asia Cup in Malaysia later this year.

Despite Bangladesh comprehensively winning the first game while the second was washed out, the visitors went on to win the next three successive matches to seal their victory.

Batting has now been cited as the biggest concern for the Bangladeshi youths after Saif Hasan and his troops were bundled out on below hundred scores twice in the series.

"It is disappointing to lose [against Afghanistan] but it is not the end of the world," said Bangladesh Under-19 team batting coach Abdul Karim to the Daily Star yesterday.

"We batted badly and paid the price for it while some of their batsman just took the game away from us by playing some aggressive brand of cricket. This group of cricketers has just come from the Under-17 side and they are still young and learning," he continued.

According to Karim, the lack of match practice is also one of the main reasons behind Bangladesh's downfall to their Afghan counterparts. However, he added that there is still some time left for the players to gather momentum.

Conversely Damien Wright, who was appointed as the team's head coach in May this year, according to officials, was not available for the series as he left on October 4 to tend to his ailing mother and is expected return after a two-week layoff. Wright has signed on for a period of nine months where he will take charge of the youth side though the upcoming World Cup.

Meanwhile according to the BCB's game development chairman Khaled Mahmud, the series defeat against Afghanistan has been a learning curve for the young Bangladeshi cricketers as the lack of match practice is the main reason for the dismal performance.

"There will be a training camp starting from October 17 where we are looking to include some new players in the set-up. I think the lack of match preparations is the reason as these boys are very young and need to play more matches. There is still a lot to work on and I am hopeful that they will get better after some fine tunings," opined Mahmud.