Bangladesh's poetic collapse

Their most dramatic poem started as 27 needed from 30 balls, with seven wickets in hand.

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One, two, buckle my shoe; Three, four, knock at the door; Five, six, pick up sticks; Seven, eight, lay them straight; Nine, ten, a big fat hen; Eleven, twelve, dig and delve; Thirteen, fourteen, maids a-courting; Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen; Seventeen, eighteen, maids in waiting; Nineteen, twenty, my plate’s empty.

That is one of the most famous number poems ever written. It is a genre that is mostly for kids learning their counting, but it can also be used to tell stories.

Cricket has one of the greatest number poetry creation systems ever.

For instance, chasing 359, England are 15-1, 15-2, before slight respite and then another double loss with 141-3 and 159-4. Bairstow and Stokes get them to 245, but that is where they lose their fifth wicket. 253 is sixth, 261 is seventh, and 286 is calamity, with eight and nine. Australia need one more wicket, England need 73 runs. Maths would dictate that Australia win, but Ben Stokes doesn’t worry about numbers. He only asks for one from Jack Leach. Australia never get that last wicket. England end on 362-9. Leach will add a single, and Ben Stokes wins the match from the other end.

Fall of wickets is a form of poetry, all on its own.

This Bangladesh team look like they’re poetry fans. They have a wicketkeeper, Nigar Sultana, who is always in the middle of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. Sobhana Mostary feels more classical, perhaps Rabindranath Tagore. Whereas Fahima Khatun, who may be the coolest cricketer in the professional game, clearly reads Charles Bukowski.

This team added their own poetry to this World Cup. On top of heartbreaking losses to England and South Africa, they went a step further against Sri Lanka.

Their most dramatic poem started as 27 needed from 30 balls, with seven wickets in hand. It ended like Sylvia Plath’s work, in a tragic seven-run loss.

Needing 203, Bangladesh were 176-3. They hadn’t lost a wicket for almost 30 overs. They were doing well.

27 from 30 is so illustrative that you don’t need to be a cricket expert to understand how close this was. The number 27 does that for you.

That is when Chamari Athapaththu took her first wicket, Shorna Akter for 19. She only made 90 runs in the tournament, and so it wasn’t like Bangladesh had been leaning on her.

Enter Ritu Moni, she added 44 for the tournament, and none in the first three balls. This was the curse of Bangladesh - an almost insane inability to rotate strike. They got stuck, just when they needed nothing more than a few runs to keep the machine ticking over.

At the other end was Sultana Joty, who had already added 67 runs. All Bangladesh had to do was get her on strike. But you know, that is not their thing.

So for two overs, they lose one wicket and score only six runs. Meaning 27 from 30 becomes 21 from 18. The math flipped.

Athapaththu was bowling again, and she started with a horrendous full-toss wide that was hit for one. And the next ball was equally flighty, but instead of a single, Sultana lofted it down the ground for a boundary. They pick up four more singles and end with nine from the over. Now it’s 12 from 12 - the math is mathing again.

Kumari bowls the next three balls, a dot and two singles follow. Moni decides to try to get a boundary with a big shot over the offside, yorks herself, and looks a bit silly. She’s gone.

There is something I need to tell you about all this. Moni’s dismissal was their fifth wicket, but kind of wasn’t.