Strauss: 'Tours here are key for Bangladesh's development'

Series will be one-sided but England captain supports opposition's right to be at Lord's – and it may set England up nicely

(AP)

England will defeat Bangladesh in the first Test match of the summer starting at Lord's today. It may take them until Monday if it rains; Sunday if it does not, the tourists put up a hell of a fight and the home side play badly; Saturday if England play well and boldly and Bangladesh are outclassed; Friday if England are outstanding, their opponents are hopeless and the pitch is lively. There has never been a one-day Test.

That this prediction can be made with such cold-eyed certainty – no bookmakers required, legal or otherwise – seems to demean the contest from the outset. Whatever else is taking place at the greatest sports ground in the world today and at Old Trafford, vying to be the worst, next week, is not Test cricket either in spirit or definition, because for one of the sides it is not a test, unless it is that of a first-class honours graduate sitting his SATs.

Andrew Strauss, England's captain, is returning after taking a break from the international game since January. His side is likely to include an exciting debutant, Eoin Morgan, and a fast bowler new to Tests in England, Steve Finn. There are sound reasons for believing that they will both have enduring Test careers but whatever they achieve in this match will not necessarily help towards that end.

Bangladesh have been playing Test cricket for 10 years and have won three of their 66 matches, one against Zimbabwe, who were equally hopeless, or on that occasion more so, and two last year against West Indies who put out a third team. It is a lamentable record. Of their defeats, 33 have been by an innings, nine by eight wickets or more.

It is said they are improving. Well, perhaps. Since they last came to England in 2005, they have played 28 Tests, lost 24 of them, 11 by an innings. It is said they can compete more equably at home yet they have lost 14 of their last 16 matches there.

Earlier this year they gave England a game of sorts by preparing pitches which had died some time before the start of the match and probably needed embalming to last the course. Bangladesh took both matches into the fifth day and made England look ordinary in periods of the first Test. There were glimpses of the quality required to meet the demands of the highest, purest form of the game but they soon disappeared.

On this tour so far, most observers have despaired at their lack of discipline, technique and sense. Had their captain, Shakib Al Hasan not recovered from chicken pox and their most accomplished batsman, Tamim Iqbal, been unwilling to play with a chronic wrist injury, the mismatch would be more pronounced.

Yet it is confidently expected that the ground will be more than half full on the first three days, which means it will feel as if there is a crowd. Lord's indeed was being geared up in its usual way yesterday and the champagne stall at the Nursery End was taking delivery of enough stock to keep a platoon of city bankers happy for at least a week. (It will be, however, a much different story next week at Old Trafford).

England's players are saying all the right things about not taking the opposition lightly. Strauss, who was decidedly perky about his return as captain and opening batsman, stopped short of saying that Bangladesh could be the next Australia. But he was not about to condemn them.

"I think they have showed over the last two years they are improving," he said. "They are becoming more of a match for sides, especially at home."

But should they, really, be playing Test cricket? A thoughtful pause and then: "I think, yes, they should be but it's important that they continue their development and tours over here are a way for them to continue that experience which is so crucial.

"It's good for England to play them in the sense that it gives you opportunities to win but that doesn't mean you're going to win and if you expect to turn up and walk over them that's when things start getting really dangerous for you. A lot of sides who have played Bangladesh in the last couple of years have found them a tough nut to crack; others have found it easier; we want to be in the latter rather than the former category."

In some ways, England cannot win while winning. No matter how many runs they score or how quickly they take their wickets the achievement will be diminished by the standard of the opposition. This has been an eternal problem for Test cricket and it has been compounded both by the other, more populist forms of the game and by the global reach of the great whore, football.

When New Zealand first became a Test playing nation it took them 26 years and 45 matches before they won. Pakistan, admitted in 1952, won their second match but there was a huge hiatus between 1959 and 1965 when they won none.

Bangladesh's trouble is that they play so little long-form cricket except Test matches. The rest of the time they are playing one-day internationals or Twenty20, both of which have given many elements to Test cricket but cannot teach the concentration, attention span and consolidation that is occasionally necessary.

When New Zealand were playing catch up through the Thirties, Forties and Fifties they did not have the distraction of short forms. Now that they have, incidentally, they appear to have all but given up on preparing for Test cricket, properly preparing for it that is, in a way that makes clear that it is the acme of the game.

So it goes everywhere. The players of Bangladesh will not become heroes at home by winning Test matches (although, come to think of it, leaving England behind at Lord's over the next few days might have a certain resonance in Dhaka). But winning at one-day cricket which is what attracts crowds at home and whose popularity will be enhanced by the World Cup matches in Dhaka and Chittagong, would change their lives. The concern is that Bangladesh will never get better and that cannot possibly be in the long-term interests of Test cricket.

Perversely, playing Bangladesh at home might be just what England require for the challenges ahead. They can experiment without being disrespectful to the opposition or the game, they can play around with a few formulations, some possible plans. They can pick Morgan and Finn knowing that there are no pernickety Australians lying in wait ready to cause disintegration, mental and physical, at a stroke.

Later in the summer come Pakistan and that should be, by rights, a further stepping stone to the ultimate challenge of Australia in the winter. With this sort of programme, plans can be laid, a squad groomed and matches still won.

That is what England have to do.

"It goes without saying we can't underestimate them," said Strauss. "We saw in Bangladesh they have got some very dangerous players. This series it's very important we concentrate on our own games and set our standards very high. Ultimately we're going to be marking ourselves not on whether we win or lose but how close we get to playing the type of cricket we want to play. If we do that I have no doubts we will win those Test matches." By the third session on Saturday.

Tigers by numbers

66 Number of Tests played by Bangladesh since their first in November 2000. In that time England have played 124. The sides have played each other six times, England winning all of the encounters.

3 Tests won by Bangladesh. Two came against a severely depleted West Indies side last year and the other against Zimbabwe in 2005.

53 Tests played by Mohammad Ashraful, the most by a Bangladeshi. He averages just 22.78 with the bat. The highest averaging Bangladeshi batsman is Tamim Iqbal, with 36.78.

62 Bangladesh's lowest Test innings total came against Sri Lanka in July 2007. Their highest came when they scored 488 in beating Zimbabwe.

Lord's details

England (probable): AJ Strauss (capt), AN Cook, IJL Trott, KP Pietersen, IR Bell, EJG Morgan, MJ Prior, TT Bresnan, GP Swann, JM Anderson, ST Finn.

Bangladesh (probable): Shakib Al Hasan (capt), Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Jahurul Islam, Junaid Siddique, Mohammad Ashraful, Mushfiqur Rahim, Naeem Islam, Rubel Hossain, Shafiul Islam, Abdur Razzaq.

Umpires B Bowden (New Zealand), A De Silva (Sri Lanka)

Third umpire R Illingworth

Referee A Hurst

Pitch report Likely to be a typical Lord's belter, its perfection only enhanced by having the sun beating down on it for a week. One note of caution: 11 Championship innings have yielded only two totals above 300 and four below 200.