Still searching an opening pair

The combination of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana as an unorthodox opening pair was arguably the driving factor behind Sri Lanka's World Cup triumph in 1996.

A masterstroke by the then Sri Lanka coach Dav Whatmore indeed.
The same man -- a shrewd tactician who had thought of promoting Kaluwitharana in the batting order however -- has failed to repeat the success with Bangladesh. Rather the opening has become a permanent headache for the Tigers.

It is easy to imagine the scarcity as uncapped Mehrab Hossain is considered to open the innings with Shahriar Nafees in next month's ICC Champions Trophy in India. It would be the 23rd opening pair to be tried since Whatmore's taking charge in June 2003.

Under the high-profile Sri Lanka born Australian coach, Bangladesh played sixty-two one-day internationals with twenty-two opening pairs featuring skipper Habibul Bashar, wicketkeeper Khaled Mashud, Alok Kapali, Aftab Ahmed, Manjarul Islam Rana and Moniruzzman apart from the regulation faces.

The most interesting fact remains the team think-tank's trial of different pairs even in a three-match series. Mostly, they put their confidence on Javed Omar, who was understandably omitted from the ICC Champions Trophy squad, and Shahriar Nafees, who opened in 15 matches followed by Shahriar and Rajin Saleh's nine.

Time and again, it has been proved that neither Javed nor Rajin could be a genuine contender to solve the never-ending problem.

Another stat could have reflected the real picture how different opening pairs have failed to serve the team's purpose under Whatmore's tutelage. On only one occasion (Hannan Sarker and Rana against Zimbabwe) the opening pair reached the hundred mark while there have been four 50 partnerships.

Explanations from the top brass, however, are contrasting. Whatmore is not ready to take the poor statistics as a whole while chief selector Faruque Ahmed accepts that the team management has also been inconsistent.

"That means one (opening pair) every three games. I didn't realise that many. You know sometimes we got one or two boys opening just for the sake of the game or prefer for one or two matches," said Whatmore yesterday when he was reminded about the statistics.

"I don’t think you can honestly say that we tried twenty two opening pairs in sixty matches but there might be the odd game or two where we put somebody in there to open the batting for a specific reason but not for seriously considering long term. So I am not sure whether the twenty-two is an accurate figure in that sense," he added.

Rather than concentrating on one area Whatmore wants to focus on all the departments.

"If you look through the whole batting line-up we need to be strong in all departments, not just in the opening position. Yes, the opening (batsman) is very important as much as number three and number four, five.. they are all important.

"But I have to say that we have won games without the openers doing well. But it would be nice to see them do well. I am not sure you can just pick out one area and say you have done well in a certain area. We have done well in other areas. We have to improve more and opening is one of them," he explained.

But finally he admitted that they have yet to find a trusted opening pair.

"The situation is that we are not still able to have a regular opening partnership but we have to do the best we can," he said.

On the other hand, Faruque showed the courage to accept their failure.
"Definitely the figure of 22 pairs in 62 matches is abnormal. I am ready to accept that we were also inconsistent about the opening pair. Yes, we tried too many opening partnerships but what I want to say is that we were also helpless in one sense," said Faruque.

"Undoubtedly this is one of the major problems of the team and we should overcome it soon. And we should have confidence on a pair which has the real potential and could be a good one in future," he added.

"We even tried Ashraful in this position but I must say we didn’t give him enough time. Actually we are still confused whether it would be fruitful to use him as an opener because we have to think about the middle order too."
The chief selector did not want to comment on out-of-favour Javed or mediocre Rajin but many thought that it would be suicidal for the team if the selectors once again go back to the two batsmen to solve the problem.