Bangladesh back for the real Tests in New Zealand

New Zealand has played a significant role in the development of Bangladesh's international advance, but there is likely to be little celebration of that once the National Bank Test series starts in Hamilton on Tuesday.

Once the Bangladeshis were in line for Test status their first first-class matches were played in New Zealand.

They came to take part in the Conference Cricket series in the 1997/98 season, a programme of games designed to strengthen the first-class programme in New Zealand.

Playing against the Northern, Central and Southern Zones that comprised the Conference sides, the visitors were well beaten on each occasion, the first two by an innings and by seven wickets in the third.

A match against the New Zealand Academy XI was also lost by an innings.

As a newcomer it is interesting to compare their advance with that of New Zealand when it was looking for Test status during the last 10 years of the 1890s and the first 30 years of the 20th Century.

New Zealand had tours to Australia (1898/99, 1913/14, 1925/26, 1927/28), to England (1927), while also hosting tours from the MCC (1902/03, 1922/23), Australia (1904/05, 1909/10, 1920/21, 1927/28), New South Wales (1889/90, 1893/94, 1895/96, 1923/24), Victoria (1924/25), Queensland (1896/97), Tasmania (1883/84) as well as Arthur Sims' Australian team of 1913/14.

In that time they played 103 first-class games at home, and 37 overseas for a total of 140 games.

Bangladesh, by comparison, has played 20 first-class games (only 10 before their first Test). Seven games of the 20 have been Test matches.

New Zealand's teams won 19 of their first 140 matches and drew 45.

Bangladesh has lost 13 of their 20 games with the other seven drawn.

They have had a total of 71 days of first-class cricket out of a possible 80.

Their Test record reads: v India (2000/01) lost by nine wickets, v Zimbabwe (2001) lost by an innings and 32 runs, v Zimbabwe (2001) lost by eight wickets, v Pakistan (2001) lost by an innings and 264 runs, v Sri Lanka (2001) lost by an innings and 137 runs, v Zimbabwe (2001) drawn, v Zimbabwe (2001) lost by eight wickets.

It is going to be a hard road for Bangladesh to establish itself with such limited background.

It will be interesting to compare how quickly it can register its first Test victory although its exposure to top level cricket through One-Day Internationals may be the sort of foundation on which the Bangladeshis develop.

Yet, even that is not the greatest harbinger of future good fortune for them as in 44 ODIs to date, they have won only three games.

Even Kenya, surely the next Test nation, has won seven ODIs out of 37.

What makes life even more difficult for the Bangladeshis in New Zealand is that this two-Test series is the first time their players will have been exposed to different conditions to those they have faced in their earlier Test matches.

And it won't come much greener than Hamilton, or Wellington's Basin Reserve, after the wettest spring and early summer in recent memory.