My father has this old Vespa he keeps running with half-a-dozen baling wires and a prayer to Khuda — every time the mechanic says "change the whole engine block," we find a way to fix just the spark plug instead. That is how I see this Bangladesh side: they are still patching the clutch on foreign tours while the pundits shout for a full overhaul of the academy system. Let the match referees and curators sort out the bounce in Mirpur — the real test is whether the boy from Khulna who saves his tiffin money for a new bat can sleep easy after a defeat in Hamilton.

Last week in class, I tried explaining to my students how a chess match is like repairing an old radio—you have to trace each wire, see which move connects, and sometimes the winning move is the one nobody saw coming. My father, while polishing his scooter’s headlight, said esports is just the same: a boy in Hyderabad reads the opponent’s mind through a screen, not a board. I think we worry too much about “real” vs “digital” skill—what matters is whether the game teaches a child to think for himself, or just to follow a popular streamer’s script.

This morning, while cleaning the carburetor of my father’s Hero Honda, I thought about how our school canteen replaced the old chaiwala with a big contractor — now the students get packaged juice instead of fresh lemon-water. My students tell me the new samosas are smaller, but nobody asks the kids what they want. I don’t mind healthy food, but when the cheapest option disappears, it is the children from the poorest homes who skip lunch.