Blustery conditions have often spelt the death-knell for batsmen over the many years of Lord’s storied history. The story was the same on Monday in London. On another Bangladesh versus England encounter, the home side triumphed emphatically as the tourists struggled to cope with the conditions at the home of cricket.
The only difference was that the sport in question was not cricket.
There were no pretensions as such, even as Great Britain’s Larry Godfrey celebrated his simple win in the men’s archery by imitating a hearty swing of the bat towards the famous Lord’s spaceship.
It sent the crowd into raptures but Godfrey swore it was not choreographed.
“It was on impulse, honest,” he said in the mixed zones afterwards. “I watch a bit of cricket and the venue being at Lord’s, I decided, why not go for it?” And go for it he did, with a simple three sets to none victory over a distraught Emdadul Haque Milon.
The lightweight archer had struggled intensely to cope with the wind. The baying crowd rooting for his opponent must not have helped either, even as Bangladeshi cricketers Mohammad Ashraful and Mosharraf Rubel turned up to cheer on their compatriot. “I told him — whatever you do, don’t miss the board,” said a cheeky Ashraful later.
In truth, there was little danger of such affecting Milon. The 20-year old is a talented archer but a lack of international exposure and the alien conditions put paid to his hopes of springing an upset.
“My training does not prepare me for this,” said Milon. “If you come to BKSP, you will see where we train. It’s like a coop. Wind conditions don’t factor at all,” he lamented.
It would be too easy to just blame the wind for Bangladesh’s latest ‘failure’ but the blustery conditions certainly did not make it any easier for Milon.
“The wind almost blew me off my feet,” he said, perhaps a bit dramatically. But it was easy to imagine the young man of slight frame being swayed somewhat by the conditions. And plus, with archery, even millimetres matter.
To give him some credit, Milon kept pace with Godfrey in the first set, but by the time the last shots were being doled out in the third, the Briton was miles ahead.
“He is a good lad,” Godfrey said later. “I am an old man. I have been shooting arrows 27 years. He isn’t even 27,” said Godfrey summing up the event.
Milon though seemed extremely distraught at the result. “I was hoping for better,” he said. “My target was to be amongst the top ten in the world.”
Those are heady words but Milon, who was once ranked top in the world in the youth levels, was vehement that it was possible.
“Bangladeshis can do everything. I believe in that. I wish we had better training facilities. What if we could practice at the Bangabandhu Stadium or even in Cox’s Bazar? We could have been better prepared.”
In the end though, Milon’s story is similar to perhaps all the other Olympic athletes from Bangladesh. Much has been made of Bangladesh being the most populous nation to never have won a gold in the Olympics. But if we are indeed to achieve that seemingly impossible goal, the focus first needs to be on helping athletes like Milon qualify. It is easy to forget that we haven’t even achieved that yet.
-With The Daily Star input
