NIGHTMARE IN MIRPUR: A Bangladeshi fan reacts with disbelief as another home wicket falls on the way to their incredible capitulation for 58 against the West Indies at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterdayIt is not gentlemanly, it is not smart and it has traditionally never had a place in cricket. But sometimes, on some seemingly God-forsaken days, you have used up every other word in the dictionary and yet nothing manages to quite hit the spot.
On such days, no adjectives do your feelings justice and swearing really is the only thing that will do.
And for the scores of Bangladeshi fans who had turned up sporting their red and green for yesterday's crunch match against West Indies, swearing seemed to be the only way they could justify the barely believable events transpiring before their eyes on a sunny Friday afternoon.
There was nothing to foreshadow the amazing collapse; no clear sign that such a devastating wreck was impending, none whatsoever of a crash that shamed even the yo-yo stock market in Dhaka. In short, events seemed inexplicable. And when things are such, swearing, it seems, is the only way to ease the discontent souls.
“What is happening out there?” screamed a young woman, clawing at her face in utter disbelief. Her statement, a remarkable endorsement of the collective disbelief prevailing in the stands, was amazing only because of its lack of expletives. Most others were not so kind, and the match had already descended under a dark cloud before the masses started chanting 'bhua bhua' in that inimitably Bangladeshi style of expressing discontent.
The rut started with shock when Tamim Iqbal flashed wildly at a Kemar Roach delivery to depart for a three-ball duck. At that point, most of the capacity crowd had not yet warmed their seats. Some were still queuing up to get into the stands when the audibly collective groan flooded in through the turnstiles.
A young man decked in Bangladesh colours was confused.
“Did we just lose the toss?” he hopefully asked. But reality hit him with a thud when the man three spots ahead of him checked his phone. “Tamim is out,” he said. “What a bad!”
And so it began.
It was a performance that started off bad, got worse in the middle, and by the end was barely even believable. A performance that left you feeling disgusted just watching it; full of ridiculous shots and terrible decision making. It got worse and worse and when you thought it couldn't get any worse it got worse again.
By the end of a miserable Bangladesh innings that had lasted exactly 18.5 overs, the fans had already started hurling their 4 and 6 placards onto the field in a collective sign of anger.
And by the time the innings changed over for the West Indian batting, people had already started sarcastically betting on the outcome of the match.
“I say it takes West Indies five overs to knock this off,” said Jawad from Dhanmondi. People pooled their bets and when Chris Gayle caressed Shafiul Islam to the cover-point boundary, sarcastic cheers rang around the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.
In a convoluted way perhaps, the quick demise left people little chance to be frustrated. The match was over in considerably less time than it usually takes to complete a single innings and thus the prevailing mood was one of disbelief rather than frustration leading to anger.
It was perhaps the lowest moment in Bangladesh cricket, and Shakib Al Hasan himself confessed as much at the press conference following the game. But for the twenty-odd thousand, many of who had paid through their teeth to manage a ticket in the black market (tickets sold from between BDT 2500 to BDT 15000), this really was not good enough.
But it was Hossain, a young entrepreneur from Gulshan, who perfectly put the cap on an atrocious Bangladesh performance through an expletive-riddled statement.
“I spent much more time looking for a ticket, than I did at the game itself,” he said. “And I paid 7000 taka as well. This was not worth a single penny.”
Yesterday evening, not one of the 26,000 plus at the stadium would disagree.
