'We're not here to make up the numbers,' says Whatmore

Dav Whatmore, Bangladesh's coach, believes that his team can lift themselves from the thrashing they received at the hands of South Africa, and give West Indies a run for their money. And Brian Lara certainly gave Bangladesh a fair bit of respect when he spoke to the media at the Rose Bowl on the eve of the match.

"I think Brian Lara's comments were made as a result of the last time we played them, in the West Indies," said Whatmore. "The boys had some reasonable days and we came close a couple of times in the one-dayers. That's why he understands that Bangladesh can play much better than what we showed at Edgbaston. We're all pretty upset with that."

Whatmore was clear that his team were not quite in the same position as some - like the USA, who were totally outclassed by Australia yesterday. He believes that Bangladesh have it in them to upset the big teams, even though they have not been consistently competitive in the past. "We're going for a win," said Whatmore when asked what he expected from the match against West Indies. "We don't play to make up the numbers. We may falter and play some bad cricket for half-an-hour or an hour, but the objective is to go out there and win. Nobody can blame us for that."

Ricky Ponting, and some former cricketers in the media, have raised doubts about the lessons the minnows take away after being outclassed by the big guns, and it has even been suggested that the Champions Trophy might not be the right place for them to compete. But Whatmore doesn't think this applies to Bangladesh: "It's fine for people to have that opinion, but at the same time one of the major ICC goals is to spread the improvement of cricket globally. There's only one or two opportunities where we can all get together as a group, and this is one of them."

While admitting that Bangladesh had not fulfilled their promise, Whatmore explained that there was no reason why they could not succeed at the highest level. "Bangladesh have not done as well as they should have, but you have to look at a lot of things. Inside Bangladesh are the ideal circumstances in which to make the game flourish and be really competitive worldwide. You have the population, the grounds, huge interest, and potentially big sponsors. It's all there. Bangladesh doesn't need negative comments. It needs enough people helping to push in the right direction in order for that team to be competitive, because everything else is there. This is not necessarily true in some of the other developing countries."