You missed out the India series in Bangladesh in May 2007 - that was probably one of Bangladesh's better showings with the bat in that list, despite them only playing 2 ODIs. The Kitply Cup and Asia Cup, and of course the World Cup should have qualified too.

Ric's comment: As explained in the blog, I only considered bilateral series of at least three matches. I wanted to see how they coped playing the same opposition over a relatively extended period.

Scepticism first.

Is batting average the right criteria to compare or the run-rate ? A score of 340/8 is inferior to 240/3 in the present comparison.

Ric's comment: I'm concerned that Bangladesh haven't taken on board the basics of batting, which is to score runs while preserving their wickets. It is no good scoring at eight runs an over if you are going to bowled out for 120. I would be very happy to see Bangladesh score 240/3 in a 50-over game given their current form! But quite frankly, they don't look like it.

Can we have a similar analysis for bowling? Also, would it be feasible to draw up a quick matrix showing the frequency/ number of Test matches played between various teams? For instance, India seem to play Australia and Pakistan more often than, say, West Indies or New Zealand?

Ric's comment: The batting average of the opposition is, of course, the bowling average of Bangladesh, and vice-versa. I'm not sure how your other questions relate to Bangladesh....

Further to Vidhya's comment: is the result any different if we look at the average scores of Bangladesh and their opposition? You can use Duckworth-Lewis to include the incomplete innings.

I think this illustrates perfectly what everyone thinks about Bangladesh - they are simply not competing at this level. It's only more recently suggested they have internal problems, and the graph suggests the effect this has been having for some time, culminating in the recent resignations. If this trend is to continue, I cannot see how they can continue to be granted Test status. If only they had kicked on after their period 2004-2005, but as this demonsrates, their batsmen are unable to post a score with any consistency that releases pressure from their bowlers, or puts it onto the opposition. I would be interested to see this over a 10 year period for every other nation, overlayed to show the trends, particularly if also mapped against their relative ICC standings to see how much can be read into it.

Do the comparison for other countries when they started playing cricket with the existing giants. Also keep in mind that other countries have improved their game a lot (which is easier for them than Bangladesh) over the same period.

Ric's comment: That's a good idea, Ashish - when I have some time, I might have look at Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, and even Kenya in the same light.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who will appreciate your effort to put Bangladesh in such favourable light. After all, batting ratios can hide the final results quite effectively. So for everyone who's wondering what the actual final figures are:
Bangladesh have played 127 ODIs against the other current Test sides (Zim != current). They have won 6 of these matches. That's less than 5%.
This might be why you did this for ODIs and not Tests, where I would presume batting ratios would make just a little bit more sense, but show Bangladesh in a lot less favourable light. I would be really interested in seeing this applied to Bangladesh's first 50 Tests against the first 50 of all other countries apart from Australia, England and South Africa.
Does anyone know exactly what it would take for a country to lose Full membership or Test Status? I suspect it might only happen when a board that recognizes the ICL.

Ric's comment: I'm not sure this analysis shows Bangladesh in a favourable light at all! I make it 21 wins out of 160 ODIs (13%) against the other Test sides, going back to 1985, but either way, it's a poor record, especially given they have an ODI history that now goes back 23 years. As you infer, their Test record is also very poor, but I'm not sure the ratios given above would be all that different. I will look at it sometime soon.

Hey Ric! First, nice to see you taking over Anantha's great work (hopefully we'll see him too!). This post is not in relation to the article, however I hope that you will read it (its more of a request actually).
I (and 100s others) play an online simulation of cricket (fromthepavilion.org) and we're trying to see if the match engine replicates real life. Statsguru has been godsend, but a tad limited on following questions:
1. When do death overs actually start.
2. What are the average runrates and wickets lost during that period.
3. Whether spinners or seamers are better during those overs.
4. The changing role of spinners over decades of cricket.
There's another... what constitutes a dry pitch, though its probably beyond statistical analysis.
I hope that in your future analysis, you may be able to touch some of those points.
Regards
Cellinis

Ric's comment: Thanks for your comments, Cellinis - Ananth is still active, I am sure!

The information you seek is best found on Cricinfo, I reckon - I personally don't keep data within matches, only the data at the end. I suspect the death overs might start as early as the 41st over in a 50-over match. Someone with the time could find some fascinating stats using the Commentaries on Cricinfo.

Its ok. I agree with you that the performance of Bangladesh is too poor. But what's your suggestion about Bangladesh now. Should Bangladesh band? Whats your opinion ?

Ric's comment: The most successful teams are supported by a professional administration that promote a vibrant youth development programme. Bangladesh has a huge population, and the human resources it has should result in a successful cricket team at the highest level. Bangladesh has issues revolving around the politicisation of its administration. My opinion is that cricket administration needs to be decoupled from government, otherwise you won't get the consistency of policy and personnel that is really needed. I know that the overseas coaches who take up appointments there get frustrated by an administration that doesn't always provide the support that is required. Change is not going to happen overnight.

Bravo, but I'm afraid you have only underlined that which has been so rudely staring us in the face for the past decade. Bangladesh does not belong in the upper echelon of cricket and it is a crying shame that the ICC let their mal-nutritioned and vertically challenged players walk the same earth as did the great Don or Sir Viv. It is an abomination to coerce people into watching them in action time and time again and calling it cricket. In Australia, cricket is a game of passion that inspires everyone from the locksmith to the Prime Minister. In Bangladesh, cricket is just an annoying jumping insect that crawls into your living room when you least expect it and you don't quite know how to make it go away.

Bangladesh's performance is judged as if it is a growth stock on Wall Street, but as we have seen index doesn't show the whole picture for a company. For Bangladesh, it is a difficult journey but they haven't done as bad as the collective picture shows. Three of their bowlers Rafique,Mashrafee & Razzaq took over 100 wickets and at least 5 batsmen passed 1000 runs. They won matches against Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India despite the fact that the opponent over scored them in every series. Bangladesh had a 13 month gap from one test to the other in 2005-06 i believe, which doesn't help a team to keep up with the rest in any manner. It's true that Bangladesh bring their own demise most of the time, especially with their predetermined shot selections but its also true that nervousness comes from the fact that they play international cricket in such a big gaps. Also not having a home season doesn't allow the young players to settle. So don't just go by numbers, go by facts too.

Statistics never shows the entire picture. The improvement in the structure of Bangladesh cricket since it was granted test status is startling. We all know people of Bangladesh are very passionate about their cricket. However, we don’t see the underlying effort of the BCB which has been relatively untouched from the political instability. It hired some very high profile coaches, currently has a good first class cricket structure and a great youth oriented program. All of it was possible due to financial stability that was provided by the granting of Test status. There has been a massive investment by BCB into Bangladesh cricket for last few years and it will certainly bear fruit in next few years.
I believe that Bangladesh was given Test status too soon and it was a wrong decision. Taking away the Test status would also be a very wrong decision. That will set back the country thirty years in terms of cricketing progress. You can’t right a wrong by making another wrong decision.

Surprisingly enough (to me, at least), doing the same exercise for Test matches shows a pretty clear positive trend, albeit coming off an extremely low base. They had over 1100 runs scored against them for the loss of just 8 wickets in the 2001/2 Asia Cup, and two of those wickets were retired out!

The trendline has them at an average ratio of about 0.45 at the moment, and if the trend continues, then in a few years' time the typical result won't be an innings loss.

Not that there's any guarantee that the trend will continue, of course, especially with the loss of half their first-choice team. Their three-Test (three!) against Sri Lanka recently was one of their worst ever.

"With so many big names moving over to the ICL, the task becomes even more difficult for Bangladesh."

I would have thought that with such poor results ever since they have been playing, the ICL walkout will be a blessing for them. After all, all of them have been part of the inconsistent results and at least now they can be thrown out for good and maybe the new players can thrive in a culture bereft of the losers.

David, I had done the same exercise for Test cricket a few months back but with cumulative averages instead of individual ones. What I found was the lowest point in the batting-ave/bowling-ave was in the series v WI in 2002-3, when Jermaine Lawson took 6 for 3, at which point the batting average was 18.4 and bowling average 60.1. From mid-2003, it improved successively in the series against Pakistan, England and Zimbabwe. It then stagnated and has remained that way till now.

A consistent pattern in Bangladesh's last five series - if you exclude SL - against Australia, India, New Zealand and South Africa has been a decent first Test, which was then followed by a terrible second Test which washed away whatever was gained in the previous match.

Ric
My feeling always has been that Bangladesh have been villified far more than they deserve. I do not deny that their results have been very poor. However if one compares the Bangladesh results for the first 50 Tests with other teams which have had poor starts (I can think of India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka et al), this conclusion of mine would either be re-inforced or blown sky-high, once and for all. I request you to do such a comparison.
Ananth

Ric's Comment: I am happy to provide those here, Ananth, but I am wary to read too much into such comparisons, because India needed 24 years to play 50 Tests, NZ needed over 30 years, and Sri Lanka needed 12 years. Bangladesh played its 50th Test in just a tad over 7 years, and I would contend that playing such a relatively concentrated programme should result in more improvement than we have seen, given the modern methods, technology and thinking now available to assist development. India won 5, lost 18, drew 27. NZ won 1, lost 26, drew 23. Sri Lanka won 4, lost 22, drew 24. Bangladesh won 1, lost 44, drew 5. You can see that the first three didn't win substantially more than Bangladesh did, but they were much more successful in avoiding defeat.

Just eyeballing the graph, I'm pretty sure the trendline isn't significantly different from zero.

On the plus side for Bangladesh: there isn't enough evidence here to show they're getting worse.

On the minus side for Bangladesh: there *really* isn't any evidence here to show they're getting better.

It's also worth looking at Zimbabwe in the 1990's. Their batting ratio in Tests was typically around 0.8, and occasionally above 1.

Only the 19th century South African "Tests" compare to the consistent woefulness of Bangladesh.

I'm afraid that your trend line is not significant. It just comes from the fact that the lowest points are at the end of your data sample and slightly lower than the first few points.

Ric's comment: Doesn't that in itself tell you something!

In fact, statistically, there is no real evidence of a trend there.

That said, you would expect a positive trend over time as Bangladesh's standards rise slowly to those of the longer-standing teams. The fact that despite fanatical support and occasional successes, there is no real upwards trend is very worrying and contrasts sharply with Zimbabwe's first 10 years.

For how long can Bangladesh survive on largesse of the BCCI ? I think it's a shame that Bangladesh is allowed to play Test cricket. My point is are teams like Kenya, Ireland worse than Bangladesh ? If they are given a chance to play Test cricket they will improve considerably. Bangladesh players on the other hand in spite of bad performances behave like superstars. You hear Ashraful saying that his performances will give him a chance to play IPL & Champions league when the fact is he averages poorer than most of the tailenders of other nations. This is when he has scored most of his runs against non-Test playing nations. Its because of BCCI that Bangladesh is holding to its international status otherwise if ICC had showed even a scant respect for cricketing standards then Bangladesh would not be playing international cricket anymore.

Rohan, Kenya & Ireland are surely worse than Bangladesh. What made you so doubtful?!

Thank you for this well written post. But I had trouble navigating through your web site as I kept getting 502 bad gateway error. Just thought to let you know.

I hope this article can be revisted now or after the India vs Bangladesh 2 test series finishes by end of January 2010. The progress of Bangladesh will be obvious to you specially how the team is performing in both Test and ODI over the last couple of years...