Was Mushfiqur Rahim's decision to field first against SA the worst ever by a visiting captain?

[AnasK]

Title is self-explanatory.

South Africa - 573/4d
Bangladesh - 147 & 172(f/o)

South Africa winning by an innings and 254 runs.

Thoughts?

 

[Nil Dhumrojal]

He broke his won record. Nothing new for him. World's most worthless Captain.

 

[R0H1T]

Timid & scared, never have I seen such a top order batter in the era of helmets

 

[Sin Nombre]

They would have lost badly even if he hadn't.

Nowhere near the worst ever, hyperbole much.

 

[IndYeah1]

NO. BD fans would have been blaming him for batting first if they had gotten skittled out for 100 and change, and the test match would have been over in 2 days or so.

 

[Navdeep Srivastava]

I don't know the worst, but Hussian winning the toss on nearly flat Gabba wicket and deciding to bowl first in Ashes 2002 still baffles me.

 

[Messiah]

BD would have been bowled out for 50 odd runs if rabada and co were charging in with the new ball in first innings. Then BD fans would have ate him alive anyways. Feel bad for him actually. He has to deal with a hyper delusional fan base that expects way too much from a minnow team

 

[MMHS]

Probably won't have mattered much, but he should have batted first. I can recall 3 such decisions - one by Nasser at Gabba, other 2 by Azhar (Lord's '90) & Waquar (Durban 2003). WY one may be explainable, but Azhra/Bedi's decision was the most ridiculous ever I can recall - they put ENG under scorching Sun at Lord's, in the 2nd half of summer.

Normally, I have seen Asian Captains, on tours, putting opponents in if there is even slight moisture on surface. Imran also put AUS in at MCG 1990, which was a notorious track those days for batting 2nd.

 

[sachin100]

BD would have been bowled out for 50 odd runs if rabada and co were charging in with the new ball in first innings. Then BD fans would have ate him alive anyways. Feel bad for him actually. He has to deal with a hyper delusional fan base that expects way too much from a minnow team

Hyper delusional fan base is the apt word for bangladesh fans.

 

[jnaveen1980]

Did it actually matter? On a fresh pitch they could have been shout out for total less than 100.

 

[The_Odd_One]

May be he wanted test match to last 3 days? There is no other logical explanation.

 

[KyoOne]

Tourists, and especially the rare ones, do not often realise the dynamics of the pitch in foreign countries.


The teams were simply no match. Bangladesh should produce tall and strong pacers alongside able batsmen to not get humiliated every time they tour some place.

 

[Buffet]

BD team was hoping for SA taking lots of time out of game by batting twice leading to a draw. Problem was not batting enough overs by BD batsmen. The way BD batted and bowled, it wouldn't have mattered.

 

[Convict]

Nasser at the Gabba

 

[troodon]

SA are too good for BD. Result would have been the same irrespective of who batted first.

 

[giri26]

I don't think so, Mushfiqur probably made the decision looking at the pitch. He would have also been influenced by the poor batting performance in the second innings of the first test. Also looking at the green pitch he would have thought that his bowlers might be able to nip a few out at the start. Even though the decision to bowl first wasn't that bad, the execution by BD team overall was poor. When you lose by an innings it is hard to pin point just one decision to be the reason for the failure.

I don't think the pitch played any different on the first morning to the second afternoon. BD just weren't up to it and it was a collective failure of the team as a whole. We can't blame them too much either as they don't play overseas that often. When they finally got the chance, their best player decided to take a break. I don't think it would have made a huge difference but you never know.

 

[Shutdown Corner]

It was a bad decision, but wouldn't matter much in the end.

Bangladesh were simply outclassed.

 

[Hasan123]

I don't understand someone who has played international cricket for many yearsand toured most test nations could make such an awful decision. He must have not had any confidence in his batters is the only reason I can think off. Mushfiqar needs to be replaced as captain.