All to play for

While the rest of the cricket world was fixated on Jayawardene's record breaking feats and monty's emergence as the new turbanator, cricket's second class citizens were fighting their own battles in the middle of Africa. While only a few even knew or cared about this series...well even the zimbabwean papers weren't too enthusiastic about their team, there is a lot at stake for both sides.

If you ever happen to come across the famed Bangladeshi cricket forum Banglacricket, you will quickly realise that passion for the game runs deep in every nook and corner of the country. Winning this series is critical to sustain the progress that Bangladesh has made in recent times . But if they happen to lose, all the cricketing stakeholders would again raise questions about their credentials. Similarly, Zimbabwe are on the periphery of being wiped out as a cricketing nation, sadly more as a result of politics than their players. With a team of relative unknowns, the Zimbabweans see this series as an opportunity to show everyone that they still have what it takes to play international cricket.

Before departing, the coach and captain of Bangladesh had for the first time associated words like 'favorites' to their team and even made passing remarks of achieving a 'whitewash.' So naturally we, the bangladesh cricket fanatics were expecting nothing but a complete annihilation of Zimbabwe. Even before a ball was bowled, I smelled sweet sweet victory. Why not, wasn't this team branded the weakest ever to set foot in an international match? Even considering our teams proven ability to self-destruct, the only way I believed Bangladesh could lose was if the players conspired to not show up in the field at all.

But of course what happened in the first game, unfortunately reaffirmed my belief in the unpredictability of cricket. Bangladesh not only lost the game, but they were outplayed in every department. Whatever the youthful Zimbabweans lack in skills they make up for it with passion and resolve. It was refreshing to see, their 'never-say-die' attitude and I am sure their richly deserved victory will give a big boost to Zimbabwean cricket.

The story for Bangladesh was eerily familiar... atrocious shot selection,top order collapse, innings in rebuild mode, early wickets, fielding lapses, part-time bowlers get carted around, lose game. I would say we are extremely lucky to stand at parity in the series at this point. Because the second game followed the same pattern as the first one. If anything, the top order batting looked even more brittle and clueless than the first game. The 20 year old debutant all rounder, Forhad Reza almost single-handedly steered the momentum in Bangladesh's way. Without him, Bangladesh could have very well been looking deep into the bottom of the abyss. The series is intriguingly poised, and I can guarantee that both nations will fight to the death to avoid the ignominy of being labeled as the worst of 'em all.