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May 27, 2007
Family ties
Posted by Sidharth Monga on 05/27/2007 in India in Bangladesh, 2007
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Tamim the fearless is watched by his uncle, Akram Khan
© AFP
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Even as Bangladesh were surrendering at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, Akram Khan, at 38 years and 206 days, was playing his last organised cricket match. Playing for DOHS against Sonargaon in the Dhaka Premier Division League, he led for the last time a team that could scarcely have got more interesting. There were veterans in Steve Tikolo and Khaled Mahmud. They had ultra youngsters in Tamim Iqbal and Dollar Mahmud – his name will catch your eye before his pace does, which according to locals will do too.
Akram made only three in his last game, but Tamim, his nephew, made 72 in true aggressive style, which has made him one of Bangladesh's favourite players. A past hero, who led Bangladesh to their first ODI win and led the team in the ignominious years, did not get to bat with the fearless youngster, the future of Bangladesh cricket, though.
Continue reading "Family ties"
May 23, 2007
Field of dreams
Posted by Sidharth Monga on 05/23/2007 in India in Bangladesh, 2007
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Shakib Al Hasan, still on the rolls, is one of four stars to emerge from the BKSP
© AFP
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About 45 kilometres from Dhaka city centre lies 100 acres of utopia, the Bangladesh Kreeda Shiksha Protishthan (BKSP), or the Bangladesh Sports Institute. It covers most popular sports but its biggest claim to fame, which fits in neatly with the job at hand, is its grooming of cricketers. The cricket revolution here is young yet the BKSP has already given four players to the current national side: Shakib Al Hasan, still on the rolls here, Abdur Razzak, Shahadat Hossain, and Mushfiqur Rahim.
The BKSP is a place that appeals to the inner child – it is everything a sports-mad kid would have fantasised about in school, and missed out on because of the focus on studies. The whole campus has the typical smell of a playing: there's sweat, there's disappointment, and lots of unbridled joy. A swimming meet is going on, the road leading to the swimming pool and the football ground has Brazil written on it. Also going on is a training programme for Level 1 coaches; watching it even from a distance is an education in itself. And it's only 10am, and the students are only studying.
Continue reading "Field of dreams"
May 20, 2007
All siesta and no play
Posted by Sidharth Monga on 05/20/2007 in India in Bangladesh, 2007
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Shahadat Hossain, better known as 'Rajib', has other talents too
© TigerCricket.com
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More than half the tour is over, and we are yet to have a full day's play. In fact, only once have we started on time. It's frustrating for everyone: the fans of course; the groundsmen who have waited for 14 months and prepared tirelessly to stage a Test match; the journalists, too, who struggle to find something to write about; the umpires who everyone keeps calling on for updates; the TV commentators whose job is to keep the viewers hooked, sounding falsely optimistic in their updates; the text commentators who do not have the luxury of archival footage to fill in the void.
It's equally frustrating for the players once they leave the hotel and have to wait for 2-3 hours in the dressing room. How do they pass time; how do those restless souls stay at peace with themselves and the weather? Not everyone, after all, is a Chris Read to go on Sky TV and tell people, "What's in my bag" [Read used to do this feature with Sky during rain intervals]. Not everyone is a Makhaya Ntini either, who can come out and start doing bhangra at Chepauk [his sense of geography gone awfully wrong there] or play with the resident dog there.
The Bangladesh side here are a jolly lot who may only have a problem if the wait is longer than two hours. A two-hour break is just another opportunity for their bowlers to be looked after by the physiotherapist and their batsmen to, yes, sleep. Mashrafe Mortaza, an allrounder in his own right, takes the role of a batsman there. He can fall off to sleep anywhere, anytime, in any posture. With his snoring, Mortaza provides other players with some much-needed fun.
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May 14, 2007
Chittagong - charmingly capricious
Posted by Sidharth Monga on 05/14/2007 in India in Bangladesh, 2007
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Local boy Tamim Iqbal finally gets to play on his home ground
© AFP
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| 'Chitang', as pronounced by Bangladeshis, is the land of Aftab Ahmed and Tamim Iqbal. There is something about the air of Chittagong, something that makes people aggressive at sport and laid-back in general. Being a coastal city probably explains the usual carefree attitude. Dhaka is slow because it is busy; Chittagong is slow because it won't have it any other way. The weather is as unpredictable as the batsmen; the scorching heat last evening turned into heavy rain in the middle of the night. It rained so heavily as to delay the practice this morning. The weather promises to be the same over the upcoming ODI and first Test match.
Buying dollars seems to be a local pastime. One can find peddlers on the busy streets, whispering to anyone who as much as smells non-Bangladeshi, "Dollar, dollar, exchange." Shipwrecking is a big industry here – people dismantle the useless ships and sell their various parts.
Continue reading "Chittagong - charmingly capricious"
May 11, 2007
The Pirates' haven
Posted by Sidharth Monga on 05/11/2007 in India in Bangladesh, 2007
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DVDs galore in the Dhaka markets
© Getty Images
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Pink Floyd's Pulse concert costs 70 Takas (about US$ 1, or INR 45). The CDs of Black, one of Bangladesh's most famous rock bands (Bangladeshi rock is a big thing; one band has performed in Bollywood movies too), costs 50 Takas each.
And there's scope for bargaining. Rare Bollywood and Hollywood movies and rarer concerts can be bought for around a dollar each. Software programmes are even cheaper. Welcome to the streets and malls of Dhaka, the haven for pirated CDs and DVDs.
So widespread is the piracy that it’s almost as if there’s no other option. It's not even an underground market; pirated CDs can be bought in the most popular shopping complexes. People in India too know this and start sending DVD lists even before one gets a visa. The locals commonly boast they can watch Bollywood movies even before they are released in India.
The Copyright Act in Bangladesh labels anything used to reproduce a musical work for commercial use as piracy. This left the reproduction for personal use open for practice. Piracy through MP3s is prevalent in other countries too. But Bangladesh suffers more from the other infringement, one where an artiste’s work is copied and passed off as an original creation. In an article, "Cheating the musicians", the Daily Star says nobody bothers to stop the piracy of the second kind.
Continue reading "The Pirates' haven"
May 9, 2007
Remembering Raman Lamba
Posted by Sidharth Monga on 05/09/2007 in India in Bangladesh, 2007
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'He was always optimistic about our cricket and believed it would take off'
© Bill McLeod
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February 20, 1998. Mohammad Aminul Islam, the former Bangladesh captain, remembers the day clearly. "I had got him out that day, but I didn't know it would be his last innings." Raman Lamba fielded later in the day - without a helmet - at forward short-leg and Mehrab Hossain hit him straight in the temple. The hit was so hard, the ball rebounded to Khaled Mashud, the wicketkeeper. "I was the new man in and asked Raman if he was okay. He said, 'Bulli [Islam's nickname is Bulbul] main to mar gaya' [I am dead, Bulli]. He was shaking." Mehrab was so shaken by the accident he doesn't even like to talk about it, the local journalists warn.
Lamba had got up after the blow and had made his way back to the dressing room unassisted, his last walk off a cricket field.
Bangladesh was nowhere on the cricket map then. Yet club cricket there had attracted some of the big names. The fateful game was played between Lamba's club Abahani and Mohammedan, a rivalry that Bangladesh sports journalists equate to the one between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. Lamba always believed Bangladesh would make it big someday. "Bangladesh was his second home. He was always optimistic about our cricket and believed it would take off," Islam said. "He was one of our idols."
Continue reading "Remembering Raman Lamba"
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