Aminul and Company on road to Dublin (20 May 1999)

20 May 1999

Aminul and Company on road to Dublin

Nizamuddin Ahmed in London

May 19: Whatever the outcome of next Friday's match at Dublin, babes Bangladesh and two-time champions West Indies are set to create a record never to be broken. The asymmetric clash will be the first one-day international at the Castle Avenue.

The Bangladesh team left their Brentwood Forte Posthouse Hotel in Essex this morning to acclimatise with the venue ahead of their second group match of the cricket World Cup. At Dublin, they are putting up at the Clontarf Castle Hotel, adjacent to the 3500 capacity ground. Travelling with the team is a host of BCB officials as well as Bangladeshi journalists and photographers.

The Bangladesh High Commission in London has responded positively to the occasion and, in addition to routine support, has been busy processing Bangladeshi passports for Irish visas through its good office.

As a boost bonus to the Bangladesh team, the Bangla-desh Cricket Board president, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, is expected to check into the team hotel on Thursday evening, the day before the Dublin match. The deputy minister of the Bangladesh government had done the same before Bangla-desh's first match at Chelms-ford.

Bangladesh lost their opening tie last Monday rather crudely, hara-kiri victims of half-hearted shots, to the professionalism of Stephen Fleming's New Zealand, who had the shrewd arrogance to put Bangladesh in on Chelmsford batting track.

West Indies, on the other hand, despite redeeming their honour somewhat against Australia after a thrashing by South Africa in head-to-head Test and ODI series, seemed well on course to force Pakistan on the defensive at Bristol last Sunday in their opening match. But, in the end, Lara's men went down tamely to Wasim Akram's exploits.

Bangladesh, therefore, cannot hope for any camaraderie from the West Indies.

Aminul Islam could have only promised a good battle at Clontarf Cricket Club's low and slow Castle Avenue ground, but after the Kiwi killjoy at Chelmsford, the Bangladesh captain gallantly pronounced, "We will win (against the West Indies)".

Bangladesh continue to be the 'butt' of jokes here, which is expected to stop only when the associate member-nation wins a match in the World Cup or give one of the Test sides a real scare.

The warm-up victory against top county Essex had muffled premature critics to some extent and, last Monday at Chelmsford, local journalists were still pulling each other's legs for the English debacle.

As will be evident from a BBC 1 television programme, 'A Question of Sport' last night, which the compere concluded with the words, "We are off to buy some tickets for the Scotland-Bangladesh match in the black market".

Judging from an opinion polls published this morning by ITV they might just need to do that.

Viewers were asked on tele-text in Channel 3 to phone in their vote on 'who will be the World Cup winners'. Bangla-desh came out second in terms of popularity with 18 per cent of the votes, behind Pakistan, who polled 35 per cent. England were third with 15 per cent. A convincingly low percentile backed lesser teams; such as India (nine), Australia (six), South Africa and West Indies (four), Sri Lanka (three), Kenya and Scotland (two), and New Zealand and Zimbabwe (one).

Besides showing that statistics can go insanely wrong, it only proved (perhaps) that more Bangladeshis and Pakistanis owned telephones. What it does prove definitely is the apathy of the English to cricket.

The county cricket championship goes on unperturbed by the World Cup and football continues to plunder the sport limelight. Not a single of the five terrestrial channels is bothered to show Live all of the World Cup matches.

Whereas satellite Sky Sport pay-channel (which means you would have to pay extra to watch) is telecasting 17 of the 30 matches, BBC has been loyal enough to cover several matches, involving mainly England and Scotland. Millions, however, will be watching on television in Bangladesh and praying for the first major upset of a tournament, which is desperately seeking a lift. We all know that one of these days Aminul Islam will get his prediction right.

Source :: The Daily Star