April 17, 2006

BANGLADESH-AUSTRALIA 2ND TEST

The first day was not good for Bangladesh for many reasons. The day was marred even before the start of play as the journalists resorted to a sit-in protest in the middle of the ground against the merciless beating of fellow photojournalist Shamsul Haq Tanku of Bengali daily Prothom Alo in the ground by the police. The play was delayed for ten minutes and the umpires had to intervene.



The tension mounted during lunch break when the DC North of Chittagong Police started using his fist against a journalist (Jahirul Haque) aged like his father (65) and kicked him continuously to show that this kind of power they exercise on the people of Bangladesh (above picture). As Jahirul fell down on the ground, the police became more furious and launched a full-scale attack on the reporters and photographers present there. At least 20 journalists were injured in that assault and the local journalists boycotted covering the play. This delayed the match for the second time.

The Daily Star comments:
The full fury of the law enforcers during the lunch break not only embarrassed the whole nation but also cast a gloomy prospect for the port city to hold any future international matches.
Too bad for Bangladesh and the game.

Bangladesh struggled to put their score beyond 200 after being asked to bat. Only Rajin Saleh (71) stood out taking blows of a few bouncers in the helmet by Lee and Gillespie. Australia was on their full might taking revenge like an injured cat. The Bangladesh Coach Dav Whatmore warned about this earlier. The first innings score at the end of the day is Bangladesh 197 and Australia 1/76 in reply. What more can you expect after the disappointing morning show by the police?

Update: Play stopped before lunch of the 2nd day due to rain and the game could not be started due to wet conditions. Australia remains at 151/2 with Gillespie, the nightwatchman of the previous day still batting.

Update II: The journalists win the battle. Reuters reports that the high official of police in the above picture (he is a popular figure now in international media) has been withdrawn to police headquarters in Dhaka to face a departmental inquiry. Another officer who strated the first assault on a photographer was suspended from duty.

Well the government has to take much more actions to improve this image below:

Reporters sans Frontieres has ranked Bangladesh near the bottom - 151st out of 167 countries listed on the RSF Worldwide Press Freedom Index for 2005.

Update III: Australia 364/3 before tea of the 3rd day. Gillespie scores his maiden Test century (His previous best 54) and Hussey is 7 short from another. You can call a game one-sided when only the third night watchman in the history of cricket scores a Test century (Gillespie). Fielding was awful by the Bangladeshis, not to mention Gillespie was dropped earlier in his innings.

Update IV: Could it be worse than this for Bangladesh? Gillespie gets a double century as his birthday present and Australia declares at 581/4. Nafees is leading a reply with 75* as Bangladesh scratches to 195/4 in the fourth day. This series has been a roller coaster ride for Bangladesh and it would be too premature to expect the first test performance every time. I guess Gillespie deserves some credit for his performance which has outweighed many Australian top order batsmen's record.

0 comments:

Post a Comment