Mark Richardson: Banging the drum for a rising force

When Bangladesh beat Australia in a one-day international last year, Andrew Symonds didn't play because he was, by all accounts, still drunk from the night before. Dreadfully unprofessional you might say but what the heck - it was only Bangladesh! Half-drunk, half-prepared, halfhearted, you'd still expect to beat the lowly minnows of world cricket.

The same casual approach nearly humbled the Australians in the first test against Bangladesh - well, you could argue the damage was already done to reputations after day one, regardless of the result. Or is it just another indication that subcontinent teams develop fast?

While Bangladesh are still firmly planted with Zimbabwe and the West Indies at the bottom of the pecking order, days and games like the last will only serve as catalysts in their development. That development, I believe, will be accelerated. Unlike the West Indies (who have destroyed their game by too many present players wallowing in the glory of past champions) and Zimbabwe (who had their fast-developing cricket spirit broken by a tyrant), Bangladesh have only progress to make.

Bangladesh has too many cricket-mad citizens not to find a stream of able players. Young players like century-maker Shahriar Nafees will continue to raise the bar.

In fact, when New Zealand toured there a couple of years ago, I felt the team we played in a warm-up match was stronger, with more natural talent, than the older test team. When you consider that the Bangladesh under-19 team went into the recent Youth World Cup with the favourites tag, the future looks rosy indeed.

It was not long before Sri Lanka replaced names like R.G. de Alwis and R.J. Ratnayake with M. Muralitharan and S. Jayasuriya and I suspect it won't be long before Bangladesh find their own world-beaters too.

In the short term, passion and commitment won't be the barriers, money will. It takes money to develop a domestic infrastructure and that money will arrive in bucketloads as the rest of the subcontinent embrace Bangladesh as worthy neighbours.

I could not help but see the delightful irony in Australia being presented with a massive cheque from the ICC for being the best team in the world on the first morning of this last test. It was done in front of the salivating Bangladeshi, who had more need for the proceeds than the silver-spooners they then went out and embarrassed.

Watching the footage of that test, the pitch did look shockingly low but it was the same for both sides.

While poor pitches tend to bring teams together, you have to agree that no surface should be bad enough to bridge the gulf between these two teams.

And, for the cynic in New Zealand who has conveniently forgotten the extended period of minnow-dom New Zealand endured, cast your mind over scoreboards from some of our test victories past and present and read into pitch conditions what you like.