It's Been a Long, Hard Road for Bangladesh but Let's Enjoy Emergence of a New Competitive Test Nation

Tim Wigmore is thrilled by the ascent of former Associates nation Bangladesh back to winning ways in Tests.

- Tim Wigmore

Bangladesh is a nation created in the shadow of war. After a brutal conflict, East Pakistan gained liberation from West Pakistan in December 1971. This new country was the seventh most populous nation in the world, yet was ravaged by the horrors of war, and years of neglect at the hands of West Pakistan.

When Bangladesh was formed, Abdul Kardar, the former Pakistan Test captain and Pakistan’s representative in the International Cricket Conference, the forerunner to the International Cricket Council, proposed that Bangladesh were admitted to Test cricket.

As part of East Pakistan, Bangladesh had regularly hosted Tests, in Dhaka – indeed, Pakistan’s very first Test at home was played there, in front of 80,000 over five days – and had a palpable relish for the game. Kardar’s suggestion was politely rejected. And so, while Bangladesh struggled with terrible economic turmoil in its nascent years as a nation, it was denied an international cricket team, and shunned by most of the cricketing world.

Robin Marlar, a Sussex player turned journalist who would later be MCC president, repeatedly drew attention to their sad plight –“Bengali cricket is numerically strong,” he wrote, declaring Dhaka “a Test match ground fit to rank with any in the world.” Few listened. When the inaugural World Cup took place in 1975, there was no system of qualification, and Bangladesh were not invited.

A lack of enthusiasm for cricket was never Bangladesh’s problem. A debilitating absence of funding, opportunity and infrastructure was. During the early years of the Bangladesh Board, the phone line rarely worked. The humanitarian and socio-economic crisis in Bangladesh was such that the Dhaka Premier League could not take place in 1972; it had to be abandoned halfway through the 1973 season.