Sports Desk:

While listing off issues plaguing Bangladesh batters in international cricket across formats, inconsistency has to be placed somewhere around the top.

Right from Bangladesh’s nascent days in international cricket, one good innings would all but guarantee a batter’s place in the side for a few games, a tendency that is still prevalent, and because of that, player’s never really needed to strive for consistency.

According to Bangladesh Tigers programme coach Sohel Islam, scoring runs consistently is a “habit” which needs to be drilled into the players at the domestic level, but that is hardly done in Bangladesh as players often receive a lot of hype for achieving very little.

“I feel that culture is very important regarding how we rate players. If you look at India where domestic cricket is very competitive, a hundred or two is not a big deal there. Here, one big score satisfies the players, coaches and the media,” Sohel told the media.

“Scoring big runs back-to-back is a matter of habit. It can’t be that you score two hundreds in a match but then in the next innings you don’t score,” he added.

In June, Najmul Hossain Shanto struck back-to-back tons in Galle during the first Test against Sri Lanka but produced scores of eight and 19 in the second, which highlights the inconsistency of established batters.

Sohel feels that batters need to develop the hunger to keep scoring big runs.

“We have talked to Shanto and that he should have scored more runs in the next Test after back-to-back hundreds… We are trying to get out of this situation and trying to change their mindset. The runs you scored on Sunday is in the past, the determination you have on the first day and the commitment that you scored the runs with has to be continued.

“We are not trying to measure players by just numbers. What impact and what scenario he is performing in should also be important,” he added.

Often, batters with high averages in domestic cricket have not performed well in international cricket or in ‘A’ team fixtures – case in point Anamul Haque Bijoy, who struck 700 runs at an average of over 50 in the last National Cricket League (NCL).

Last NCL, Khaled Ahmed was the only top pacer to have played five matches in the first-class competition which meant batters did not face steep challenges across a whole innings against most oppositions.

Sohel pointed out this particular facet and said, “If the opposition has two quality bowlers, you know that if you can survive them you can bring things under your control. In countries with quality domestic cricket, you will find that four of the five bowlers are good and they threaten for a long period.”