Dangers of home comfort

Over the last three years or so there have been pockets of concern about the fact that the relative rise of Bangladesh cricket is a red herring of sorts because all of their successes were in familiar subcontinent conditions. The Bangladesh A team's showing on the current tour of England validates those concerns to some extent, although an A team tour may not always be the best yardstick of the progress of the national team.
But this is not just any second-string side. It is made up of players who were part of the national team's training camp before they departed and a majority of the side have played international cricket, that too in the not-too-distant past. Players like Anamul Haque (arguably the best batsman on tour), Jahurul Islam, Mominul Haque, Robiul Islam and Shohag Gazi are likely to slot into the Bangladesh squad when the New Zealand series comes around in October, and the likes of Imrul Kayes, Naeem Islam and Rubel Hossain are seasoned internationals with more than 40 ODIs.

Naeem Islam's rousing century in the last match against the England Lions only served to demonstrate how different Bangladesh A's tour could have been.

They lost all their matches against county sides leading up to the three-match series against the England Lions, which is a fancy name for England A. Against the Lions, the young Tigers lost the first two matches by embarrassing margins, but managed to pull off a consolation win in the last match on tour by chasing down 319, largely because of Naeem Islam's unbeaten 121. That win should not alleviate general air of gloom from the tour; instead it should amplify it because it proved that the A team had the capability to have a much more fruitful tour. In the final analysis, they have lost seven and won one game on tour.
The warning signs of such unpalatable results have been there for quite a while. The players in and around the national team have all been used to home comforts provided by the conditions in the subcontinent. Subcontinent conditions are pretty similar, with low-bouncing pitches in Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan all favouring batsmen and spin bowlers to varying degrees. Proof of that are the army of spinners these countries produce -- Pakistan's apparent fast bowling assembly is the exception to the rule, but then they have always been a cricketing anomaly -- and the high averages of their top batsmen. Batsmen usually get a rude shock when they go abroad to Australia, England or South Africa where pitches offer more bounce and seam movement, sometimes both together.
On the two occasions since June 2010 that the Bangladesh team went out of the comforts of Asia was when they visited Zimbabwe in 2011 and earlier this year, and the results against a side decidedly inferior on paper provide further validation of the team's inability to play on seaming pitches.
Much has been made of Bangladesh's quest for respect on the international stage, but that really cannot be attained if a side cannot at least compete in all conditions. For that to happen they must play in those conditions. The last tour to South Africa was in November 2008, England in June 2010, Australia in July 2003 and New Zealand in February 2010. The next non-subcontinent tour will be to the West Indies in July 2014 -- after a gap of more than four years. The gap notwithstanding, pitches in the West Indies now resemble those of the subcontinent more than ever.
You may say that the Bangladesh Cricket Board, being the newest member of cricket's elite, do not have much clout to dictate matters like organising tours to Australia or South Africa. There are still small things they can do but on the evidence of the past and the present, it seems they do not want to take those small steps that may have long-term benefits.
Even the current A team tour is really neither here nor there. Just like they have done last year, the Bangladesh Cricket Board has squandered a valuable and rare opportunity. In 2012 they had cancelled the first-class matches on the tour of Ireland, where conditions are similar to nearby England, in favour of T20 games ahead of the World Twenty20. This time also the effort should have been to squeeze in a few first-class games to give the players some valuable longer-version experience in foreign conditions, because performance in Tests is the barometer to judge Bangladesh's progress. Instead, we have to be content with one-dayers and a packed tour, by the end of which the players will likely be disheartened by the results while not getting as much experience as they should have.
So just a heads up, if and when Bangladesh leaves the subcontinent and gets trounced (the 2015 World Cup in Australia for instance), do not be astonished. The warning signs have been there for quite a while.

Sakeb Subhan works as a sports journalist for The Daily Star. He has been an avid cricket follower for nearly 20 years and considers himself an armchair cricket expert.