Bangladesh will begin their adventure in the third ICC World Test Championship (WTC) cycle with a series against New Zealand, which begins today in Sylhet.
In the 2023-2025 cycle, the Tigers will play 12 Tests, three at home and three away. The home advantage argument was discussed again during stand-in Test skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto’s news conference ahead of the latest WTC cycle.
For many years, however, home advantage has been a double-edged sword in Bangladesh cricket. The question of whether Bangladesh’s home advantage element works across their whole cricket schedule is critical, considering that they frequently feel like fish out of water in away circumstances with decent sports pitches in situ.
More specifically, Bangladesh’s record in the previous Test Championships demonstrates a failure to capitalise on home advantage, with only one draw in eight home Tests spanning two cycles.
“Given our bowling attack and batters, I believe we are a team capable of winning at home.” “We need to gradually build the habit,” Shanto stated at yesterday’s pre-match press conference in Sylhet.
When asked about the wicket for the first Test, Shanto was hesitant to emphasis on the home advantage issue so close to the start of the cycle.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a home advantage. I believe that everytime a team plays at home, they instantly gain an advantage. We’ll try to get those. “The wicket’s behaviour could be understood in the first session,” he said.
It represents the difficulties that Bangladesh’s captain and team management frequently endure during home Tests. If spin alternatives are prioritised, they must also assess the opponent’s spin options. The Tigers were famously defeated by the West Indies after Kyle Mayers smashed a spin-friendly wicket.
When Bangladesh last met Afghanistan in a Test, Mirpur provided a pace-friendly track, and the Bangladesh pacers did their part. It was a successful tactic due of Afghanistan batters’ proven vulnerability to red-ball pace attacks and the visitors’ lack of a pace threat.
The same cannot be said for the visiting Kiwis, who have five spin options: Mitchell Santner, Ajaz Patel, Ish Sodhi, Rachin Ravindra, and Glenn Phillips. In the forthcoming Test, their spin options are likely to extract more purchase from the wicket than Bangladesh’s Mehedi Hasan, Taijul Islam, or Nayeem Hasan. They also have pace quality in Trent Boult and Tim Southee.
“Our first priority is to win home games and demonstrate that we can play well against any team,” Shanto stated yesterday. But, with the unavailability of Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal in this series, that balancing act, particularly in terms of pitches, is now required at home.
The balancing act would have to come from playing eleven selections as well, so that pacers, spinners, and hitters could all have an impact. According to Shanto, some degree of home advantage is “automatic.” Overall, the Tigers’ only ally will be familiarity, rather than the pace-versus-spin obsession that has hindered their previous Test campaigns.