Promise turns to despair

At the start of 2019, there was much hope and positivity surrounding Bangladesh cricket but disappointments kept building throughout the past 12 months and the year turned out to be one of the more disappointing ones both on and off the field.

Bangladesh were most abject in the games’ longest format. The Tigers lost all five Tests in 2019, that too by huge margins. None were more humiliating than the 229-run defeat at home in September against Afghanistan, who were playing just their third Test.

The Tigers also made history in November when they took part in their first day-night Test match against India in Kolkata -- also the first pink-ball Test held in Asia -- in the second game of a two-Test series.

Leaving aside the Tests, the highest expectations in 2019 surrounded Bangladesh’s chances in the 2019 World Cup in the UK. A largely successful four years in ODI cricket since the last World Cup and the presence of the five pillars of Bangladesh cricket -- Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah Riyad – had raised hopes that this would be the Tigers’ most successful World Cup. Their maiden multi-team trophy win a fortnight before the World Cup, in the tri-series in Ireland that also featured the West Indies, only added to the positivity.

But after a bright start, winning their first match against South Africa, Bangladesh’s campaign petered out as they managed to win just three games out of eight and exited the tournament as the eighth team out of 10.

The lone bright spot was Shakib turning in the greatest all-round performance in World Cup history by hammering 606 runs and taking 11 wickets. He was adjudged the player-of-the-match in each of Bangladesh’s three wins – against South Africa, West Indies and Afghanistan -- and was one of the frontrunners for the player-of-the-tournament trophy, which eventually went to New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson for his batting and leading the team to within inches of a maiden World Cup win.

A dark chapter in the World Cup was the dismal returns for ODI skipper Mashrafe, who looked a shadow of his former self as he went limping through the campaign with persistent hamstring problems. That fuelled questions about the timing of the 36-year-old’s retirement, and with no answers in sight and no ODIs till the Ireland tour in May, that is set to be a hangover of 2019 that Bangladesh cricket will suffer in 2020. 

Bangladesh went on to finish the 2019 ODI calendar in Sri Lanka in much the abject manner that they had begun the year in New Zealand -- with a humbling 3-0 whitewash.

An underwhelming year on the field was about to get much worse because of events off the field.

Just a fortnight before the World Cup, the future looked rosy for Bangladesh as they won their first multi-team trophy in Ireland on May 17, beating West Indies in the final. Photo: AFP

Players’ strike and the Shakib shock

In the last quarter of the year, Bangladesh cricket was first rocked by a players’ strike on October 21, with domestic and national cricketers issuing a 13-point demand, the main crux of which was an improvement in financial benefits and respect from the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). The BCB promised to meet most of their demands, but it remains to be seen whether that issue could be put to bed.

Bangladesh cricket was further rocked on October 29 when the ICC banned Test and T20I skipper Shakib for two years -- with the second of those suspended -- for not informing the Anti-Corruption Unit of corrupt approaches from a bookmaker.

The wounded Tigers did however bounce back from the Shakib trauma to an extent by beating India in the first T20I in New Delhi on November 3 -- their first win over India in India.

Although Bangladesh went on to lose the series 2-1, it was in T20Is where the Tigers were most successful, winning four of seven games in 2019. Otherwise, 2019 was a year that Bangladesh would be in a hurry to forget.