“I was spoiled in a very strange way as a child, because everybody told me, from the moment I was able to hear, that I was absolutely marvelous, and I never heard a discouraging word for years, you see. I didn't know what was ahead of me.” ---Orson Wells The bright boy of Bangladesh cricket is Mustafizur Rahman, who is now fondly being called “The Fizz” for the sensation he has created just after his appearance from April, 2015. ‘The statistically freaky bowler with an even freakier gift’, as The Guadian’s Barney Ronay calls him, Mustafizur Rahman is still far away from becoming a great bowler like the Pakistani left-hand bowler, Wasim Akram. But the media and others in Bangladesh is celebrating him as a great cricketing hero. That is irresponsible.Dont spoil Mustafizur Rahman
Kazi Mushtaque Ahmed
I was spoiled in a very strange way as a child, because everybody told me, from the moment I was able to hear, that I was absolutely marvelous, and I never heard a discouraging word for years, you see. I didnt know what was ahead of me. ---Orson Wells The bright boy of Bangladesh cricket is Mustafizur Rahman, who is now fondly being called The Fizz for the sensation he has created just after his appearance from April, 2015. The statistically freaky bowler with an even freakier gift, as The Guadians Barney Ronay calls him, Mustafizur Rahman is still far away from becoming a great bowler like the Pakistani left-hand bowler, Wasim Akram. But the media and others in Bangladesh is celebrating him as a great cricketing hero. That is irresponsible.
Up until now this lanky medium pacer from Satkhira has played two Test matches, nine ODIs and 13 T-20s and has shown signs of great promise for Bangladesh cricket. That is why Bangladesh needs to nurture him carefully, not ruining the prospects of a great bowler through irresponsible media hype and careless response from the high-ups in society. The reckless media and poor handling by Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) was to an extent responsible for ruining the career of the fine batsman Mohammad Ashraful.
Praise always works as inspiration, but too much praise can be dangerous also. The Indian Premiere League (IPL) is a franchise tournament within a country. Here teams are formed hiring cricketers from the cricketing nations all over the world. The motivation of the tournament is money and players here play cricket for moneya good player sells himself to a team that offers him the highest amount. The IPL is the greatest cricket casino for the gamblers too. Because of its nature and involvement of money, it can never be taken as a dignified tournament like Asia Cup or World Cup that are participated by national teams.
In the IPL a player tries to be worthy of the money that is paid to him by the hiring team. The Fizz who can pitch unpredictable cutters by his strong yet supple wrist was bought by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for 150,000. In the final with Royal Challengers Bengalore, Sunrisers Hyderabad became champion. Everybody now would agree that 20-year old Bangladeshi left-hander gave much to Sunrisers. There is no doubt that the mysterious cutter master contributed immensely for his
teams win.
Fulfilling our expectation Muftafizur Rahman performed wonderfully well in the IPL and it was thrilling for us who loved to watch his every delivery in the fields of India with keen attention. His bowling record in the tournament was just fantastic: he took 17 wickets from 16 matches conceding just 6.9 runs per over, the most miserly among those who bowled in at least 10 matches. He did not emerge as the best bowler of the tournament but he earned the title the best emerging player of the tournament, the first foreign cricketer to be bestowed with the honour. That is an achievement indeed.
But a minister going to receive him at the airport and calling him with reference to Prime Minister of Sheikh Hasina as a national hero was just too much for the budding talent. He was playing on behalf of Sunrisers in a foreign club tournament, not for Bangladesh national team.
Let Mustafiz be not carried away by praise alone. Find out for him what are his weaknesses where he should give a little extra effort, and how quickly he needs to develop his stamina, build muscle tone to play effortlessly the longer versions of the game. As he knows no language other than his mother tongue, he faced communication problem with his team captain and coach in the IPL. True, in future he will be playing most of the important matches with his fellow Bangladeshi players for Team Bangladesh; still he is in great need to learn communicating in English. It is strange the BCB has not yet felt this need to employ an English language teacher to make him able to communicate in that language.
Media in Bangladesh did not show responsibility while praising performance of an individual player or the national team for that matter. The media houses just got carried away even when there was nothing great to celebrate. They usually praise our cricketers without any reserve like any other fans of Bangladesh. Many believe the batting genius Ashraful is now in the gutters because of so much pampering from the irresponsible media houses. Team Bangladesh could also do much better if media behaved responsibly.
The IPL was a great opportunity for Mustafizur Rahman and he made proper use of this opportunity. He is supposed to play English county cricket for the Sussex team beginning this month. There are people who are suggesting that Mustafiz should not go to England.
But I for one go with Bangladesh coach Chandika Hathurushing that he should go to England and play the county cricket as long as his fitness permits him to do so. Let him learn to play in a different climate and
grow an experienced and mature bowler.
The writer can be contacted at: [email protected]
