Bangladesh, who play Australia in an ODI series, are struggling to become competitive in any form of international cricket.

By Arvind Iyengar

Mohammad Ashraful will be hoping his side can pull a David and slay the mighty Australians. Of course that's highly unlikely, even if Bangladesh has managed to beat the world champions in the past once. But it's not just this one series that's the problem; the numbers reveal that Bangladesh cricket has far more serious problems...they simply have not been competitive at the international level.

Recent Struggles

Since the 2007 World Cup, Bangaldesh have played 26 one-day international matches. They have won four and lost 22, a win percentage of 15 per cent. That's just the tip of the iceberg! Their four wins include three wins over Ireland and one win over the United Arab Emirates. In the other 22 matches, Bangladesh has lost by an average of over 94 runs when chasing and over seven wickets when they have batted first. So not only have they been beaten, they have been beaten comprehensively. The mega losses include five losses of over one hundred runs and two losses by ten wickets.

Give them time?

A common grouse people have when Bangladesh's international status is questioned, is that teams like Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe also struggled in their early days. The exposure to top-level cricket helped Sri Lanka develop as a cricketing country, and this eventually helped the island nation capture the 1996 World Cup.

A preliminary look at the numbers indicate that Bangladesh have not fared too bad when compared with other "minnows of their time".

Bangladesh has played 184 ODI matches with 40 wins, 142 losses and two no results. That's a win record of 22 per cent.

Zimbabwe in their first 184 matches had won 51, lost 125, with four ties and four no results; a win record of 28 per cent.

Sri Lanka for the same number of matches had won 49, lost 125 with 10 outings yielding no result. That's a win record of 27 per cent.

So it's not that bad for the Bangladeshis. But when you look at the opponents they have beaten, they have not been of the highest quality. And like their recent success, it seems like the win column only gets revised when they play weaker teams.

The win percentage has been recalculated below considering only those matches against the top eight cricketing countries i.e. Australia, India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies, New Zealand and England.

Bangladesh has played 124 ODI matches against elite teams and they have only six wins! The remaining 118 matches have seen 116 losses and two no results. That's a win record of five per cent.

Zimbabwe in their first 124 matches against elite teams, had won 22, lost 95, with four ties and three no results.

Sri Lanka for the same number of matches had won 24, lost 95 with five outings yielding no result. That's a win record of 20 per cent.

Bangladesh has had some big wins in their ODI history, like in the 2007 World Cup. But these have just been islands of success in a vast ocean of failure. The Bangladeshis have been nothing close to competitive in their matches against top-class teams as recent history indicates, and they lost three of their four opening tour games down under to the Australian Institute of Sports! One would definitely hope that the underdogs could throw a surprise and at least hang with the champs in their three-match series, but if numbers are anything to go by, Bangladesh are going to have to wait a long, long time before they can really call themselves a top-class international team.

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