Cricket: Familiar role for new kids on block

By RICHARD BOOCK

Bangladesh's plan of lulling New Zealand into a false sense of security gained momentum during the first day of their tour match against Auckland.

The new kids on the block in terms of test cricket, the Bangladeshis emerged from their first serious examination of the tour in a relatively familiar position after being bowled out for 120 on Eden Park's outer oval.

At stumps last night, Auckland had moved competently through to 79 for two, although they would have been disappointed to lose test batsmen Mark Richardson and Lou Vincent along the way.

Richardson, having played the perfect glance to the long leg boundary off Manjural Islam's third ball of the innings, played the next straight to wicketkeeper Khaled Mashud.

Vincent was trapped leg-before by the same bowler after shouldering arms to an in-swinger.

At that stage, Auckland were struggling unexpectedly at 36 for two, but Matt Horne and Aaron Barnes repaired the damage with an unbeaten third-wicket partnership of 43 in just over 13 overs.

Horne was resolute in defence and demonstrated his opportunist streak on attack in striking five boundaries in an unbeaten 34.

Barnes played arrow-straight as he collected 18 low-risk runs before the close.

Having being sent in by Auckland captain Brooke Walker, Bangladesh fared reasonably well against the swinging ball for the first hour.

But they then fell into steep decline, losing their next seven wickets for 49 as pacemen Chris Drum, Kyle Mills and Andre Adams made their presence felt.

Drum, who has the national selectors interested after a successful return from a shoulder injury, finished with the useful figures of four for 32 and Adams three for 16.

Bangladesh coach Trevor Chappell said afterwards that his team were determined to find a positive side to the underdog status they had attracted since being admitted to test cricket last year.

"Opposition sides tend to get more quickly frustrated against Bangladesh than they would against South Africa or Australia because they think, 'These guys shouldn't be tying us down,' and they're more likely to play a rash shot.

"We'd love to tap into that overconfidence, but it just depends on whether we can show the consistency needed to frustrate the opposition."

The biggest challenge facing Chappell is developing and establishing more patience in the tourists' game, as all of their players have been reared on 50-over cricket and are unfamiliar with the requirements for the longer game.

This was apparent yesterday as most of the Bangladeshi batsmen perished on their own sword, rather than being defeated by the quality of the delivery.

"They've had two seasons of first-class cricket, including seven test matches," Chappell said. "That comes with its share of problems because our guys are not sure what first-class cricket is all about, let alone test cricket.

"It's difficult to learn the longer version of the game when you're playing at the highest level - it's a tough learning curve."

Chappell said realism insisted that Bangladesh would depart with a pass-mark if they proved competitive in both tests against New Zealand.

"Our aim is to improve with every game, which we've done to a point. If we can avoid being disgraced by New Zealand - who we rate as a fairly decent test team - we would have made some progress."