& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Opening woes go on

Naimul Karim
Anamul Haque's wicket yesterday might have gone unnoticed, considering that there were several other talking points in Bangladesh's first innings. Moments such as Tamim Iqbal falling five runs short of his first century in three years or Shakib Al Hasan's overtly aggressive batting which led to his downfall, dominated post-day discussions.
But Anamul's fall in the fifth over yesterday - courtesy of an unnecessary attempted pull shot - represents a problem that Bangladesh's cricket has been facing for a while now: the inability to form a consistent opening pair.
The last year has seen Bangladesh's batting take considerable strides; they crossed the 500-mark thrice, including a score of 638 against Sri Lanka, but the opening conundrum remains. In the last two years Bangladesh have used six pairs of openers and have seen just two partnerships that cross 50. Nazimuddin, Shahriar Nafees, Imrul Kayes, Jahurul Islam and Junaid Siddique were all given opportuni-
ties alongside Tamim Iqbal at the top, but barely yielded satisfactory results.
Anamul, who was drafted into the Test team against Sri Lanka after a century on his ODI debut against West Indies, is the latest to occupy the troubled position; and going by his statistics, he does not seem to be enjoying it. His first five Test innings has seen him score a total of 42 runs. While he began with a bang in the GDIs, his batting technique and lack of footwork in the Tests have been questioned by many.
But Anamul's records are not too different from the others. Imrul, whose 549 runs as an opener is the highest among the contenders after Tamim, scored at an average of 17.15. Junaid has scored 220 runs at 16.92, Nafees has an average of 26.40 and Nazimuddin has scored 128 runs at an average of 20.83. Jahurul, who opened for Bangladesh against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, is slightly better off with an average of33.28.
Tamim, with 2151 runs in 57 innings is Bangladesh's only opener to have shown stability. Former opener Javed Omar is the only other to have scored more than a
thousand runs.
Apart from the batting averages of the players, the total amount of partnership runs among Bangladesh's openers also reflect the poor state of affairs at the top. Tamim and Imrul are the only opening pair to have scored more than a thousand runs at the top. In the 32 innings that they have opened in, they have scored 1229 runs. The pair of Javed Omar and Nafis Iqbal is the next best with 665 runs in 19 innings.
Still new to the Test arena Anamul does have the chance to redeem himself. However, the worrisome aspect is that if the player does go out of favour, the team management is likely to pick someone from the existing group of openers, since there are aren't any obvious performers in the first-class level.
The other option would be to choose someone from a different format such as Shamsur Rahman, who opens for Bangladesh in T20s, but that too could lead to similar results. Either way, the team management would want at least one of the mentioned players to hit form, in order to relieve the team from what seems to be one of the biggest weak links in their game.