Scyld Berry: Test series victory for England can distort the picture

By Scyld Berry Published: 6:00PM GMT 06 March 2010

Testing times: Tim Bresnan (left) celebrates with team-mate Eoin Morgan in the one-day series, but success in the Tests will not infer their category Photo: AP

Bangladesh have done the worst, the majority uncompetitive begin to Test cricket of any of the 10 countries that have played this form of the sport. For majority of the time, in their initial decade, they have not since their opponents a game. Of their 64 Tests, they have lost 55, some-more than half by an innings.

Bangladesh went in to Test cricket at reduction block 10, and still have not reached block one. There was no first-class foe in Bangladesh when India"s administrators motionless they indispensable an additional opinion in the corridors of the International Cricket Council and cynically exploited their neighbours: they were dumped in the low finish and have been falling ever since.

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Upsets can begin in the shorter forms, but when men fool around boys at Test cricket usually the men will win. Bangladesh"s 3 Test wins have come opposite Zimbabwe, prior to prolonged prior to they were demoted, and opposite West Indies during a players" strike, when college kids were called in to tip what was not even a West Indies Second XI.

The elemental difficulty is that there is not, and never has been, any cricket of genuine peculiarity in Bangladesh at any level.

In the 1950s Pakistan had heated adversary in in in between the teams representing the colleges of Lahore university on that to build.

In the 1980s Sri Lanka had high-standard matches, a little of 3 days" duration, in in in between their in isolation schools: once they combined Muttiah Muralitharan to these batsmen, they were up and running.

So the skills, great day to day and disciplines have had to be imposed from the tip in Bangladesh, an examination that has nonetheless to bear any fruit.

They have 3 earnest cricketers, who would turn loyal Test players in the right environment, but they have no comparison player from that to learn. The top Test normal of any unchanging Bangladesh batsman is 33.57, that is abysmal, since the delayed gait of their pitches.

Pressure in foe is mostly referred to and occasionally defined. Bangladesh have never been means to request it. If dual batsmen get a partnership going opposite England, and begin to put feverishness on the bowlers, all fashion suggests that one or both will give his wicket away.

In their 64 Tests, Bangladesh have scored usually seventeen centuries. England"s bowlers will have to take a little wickets, but others will be since away.

Bangladesh cannot set up vigour by bowling partnerships either. They have usually ever had 3 bowlers of the compulsory standard: one of them a delayed left-armer who has retired, an additional a gait bowler with knackered knees, and the third Shakib al-Hasan, who has far as well most on his image for a twenty-two year-old all-rounder and captain.

This array will be a examination of impression for England an additional fortnight of shuttling in in in between Dhaka and Chittagong and a examination of their reserves, as their fast bowling resources have emptied afar with injuries; the unavoidable outcome of creation England fool around all year round, as if the ECB didn"t already know. But the dual Tests won"t be a correct examination of cricket skills: for England it will be similar to an examination in that you are since an occasional see at the answers.

Hence the dangerous consequences. Tim Bresnan or Liam Plunkett could take a gold of wickets, that would praise their fitness in the heat. But it would be no denote of either they are Test class. Among England"s heading bowlers on their one and usually prior debate of Bangladesh were Richard Johnson, Martin Saggers and Rikki Clarke, zero of whom went on to anything. A couple of bouncers in the Test at Chittagong last time were sufficient to take a wicket.

Bangladesh have a first-class foe now, but it is patently not a tact belligerent yet. Nobody came close to a double-century last season, even on delayed pitches, and opposite typical finger-spinners and medium-pacers.

This week the Test will be staged at the new out-of-town stadium, where Bangladesh"s naïvety gave England their third one-day feat last Friday. The hundreds for Craig Kieswetter and Eoin Morgan, and the fifties of Alastair Cook at the begin of his captaincy, were improved than zero but not tough evidence, since the antithesis was so soft.

James Tredwell could additionally take a gold of wickets from naïve schoolboyish slogs. The risk is that England"s selectors would afterwards ink him in, on the basement of these figures, for the subsequent Test when England will need dual spinners, maybe in Sydney in 10 months" time. Monty Panesar has to be the fill-in to Graeme Swann then.

Cricket has no time for complacency. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have flown in to Bangladesh, frequency worried to rehearse underestimating the conditions, if not the home side and left at the back of on initial innings in the initial Test of a series, prior to recuperating to win. As prolonged as England are not complacent, there should be no shock, injury-hit as the tourists are.