by Mon, 30 May 2005
AFP
Bangladesh not benefiting Test cricket - Hughes
Struggling Bangladesh were not up to Test cricket standard and should
instead be playing at a more realistic level, former Australian captain
Kim Hughes said on Monday.
Hughes, who led Australia in 28 Tests up to 1984, said his former
team-mate and Bangladesh coach Dav Whatmore was wrong when he said
Bangladesh should keep going as a Test-playing nation.
Bangladesh were crushed by England by an innings and 261 runs before
lunch on the third day of the first Test at Lord's last Saturday
prompting calls for their Test axing.
Bangladesh have only won once in 37 Tests and that was against fellow
strugglers Zimbabwe.
"They're just not up to standard, and it's going to go backwards if you
keep getting thumped," Hughes said on Monday.
"No matter what Dav says, there's no value at all in getting beaten
inside three days regularly.
"It's embarrassing. It's bad for the game. It belittles averages and
aggregates.
"And it's bad for spectators. Why would you go along and watch that
lot."
Hughes echoed Richie Benaud's call for Bangladesh and Zimbabwe to be
thrown out of Test cricket.
"I don't see how it's benefiting Bangladesh, I don't see how it's
benefiting anyone," Hughes said.
Benaud described the match as an "absolute shambles" and called on the
International Cricket Council to withdraw Test status from Bangladesh
and Zimbabwe for the good of cricket.
"They are simply not good enough to be pitched against proper Test
match countries," Benaud wrote in his English newspaper column.
Hughes suggested the ICC should instead direct money into development
programs and work out ways to give their cricketers competition at a
more realistic level.
"People are complaining there's too much cricket - which there is -
so I think they'd be better off playing in first class domestic
competitions in India or Pakistan," he said.
Zimbabwe could join South Africa's domestic competition, said Hughes,
who played in South Africa with the sanction-busting Australian 'rebel'
teams in the 1980's.
Hughes, who led the last Australian team to Sri Lanka before they were
granted Test status in 1982, said there was no comparison with the
situation confronting Bangladesh, even though both teams struggled to
win during their early Test days.
"In Sri Lanka it was different," Hughes said. "They had a first-class
competition. It was very big in their schools. They had a lot of good
coaching programs and a good infrastructure for cricket.
"But in Bangladesh they've got one team, one squad. I'd have thought
the ICC would be far better off to spend their money in getting coaches
there, setting up junior programs, and then maybe trying to develop two
or three first class teams."