Ariful, Ripon silver linings in dismal campaign

Batting heroics from Ariful Islam, once again, was not enough for Bangladesh as the defending champions lost the seventh-place play-off encounter against South Africa and ended their disappointing ICC Under-19 World Cup campaign in West Indies on Thursday.

Ariful's second century of the tournament, and that too in succession, did drive Bangladesh to amass a fighting total of 293 for eight, their tournament-highest by a margin. But South African young sensation Dewald Brevis, also known as 'Baby AB', countered with a ton as well to successfully chase the target for his side with two wickets and seven balls to spare.

Previously, Bangladesh had kick started their campaign with a thrashing seven-wicket defeat against England, in which they were bundled out for a mere 97 runs.

Still, Rakibul Hasan and his troop featured in the quarter-final as runners up from group A, after having comfortably beaten, as expected, the two associate nations - Canada and the UAE.

But batting, the predictable culprit, let Bangladesh down against India in the quarter-final. The young Tigers were all out for a dismal 111, eventually leading them to a five-wicket defeat. 

Despite lack of match preparation compared to what the previous World Cup-winning side went through, the likes of Aich Mollah, Prantik Nawrose and Rakibul, who all had tasted world-cup glory, could not live up to their reputation.

"Obviously, we didn't want to finish eighth in the tournament and yes, it was a disappointing result for us. Being the defending champions, we couldn't perform as per expectations and batting remained the biggest area of concern for us," age-level selector Sazzad Ahmed told The Daily Star.

However, in the end, a premier youth competition ideally becomes more about unearthing potential world-class talents, ones that can likely serve the nation in the long run. Thus, it can be argued that the salvation of this bleak campaign has somehow, and rightfully, clung to Ariful's consecutive centuries against Pakistan and South Africa. Indeed, the right-hander had punched well above his weight, showing great maturity and potential for the national side in the coming days.

Furthermore, pacer Ripon Mondol could be considered as the only worthy member of Ariful's supporting cast, as the right-arm seamer scalped 14 wickets in six games and remained handy with the bat in the latter stage of innings. 

Which is why selector Sazzad finds the duo to be the biggest, if not the only, takeaway in an otherwise gloomy campaign.