Whatmore: Give Bangladesh a break

Whatmore, a former Australian Test batsman who later coached Sri Lanka to its World Cup triumph in 1996 and to the semi-finals at the quadrennial showpiece in March, said some of Lillee’s criticism was understandable. “But I’ve got a couple of points to make — New Zealand, the West Indies, when they started, it took a long time for them to get into the winning circle,” said Whatmore, who took over as Bangladesh coach last month. “We’ve only been in here for just under four years. Bangladesh hasn’t won a Test match since it gained full ICC membership in 2000 and doesn’t have much chance of beating Australia, but there isn’t many teams that do, said Whatmore.

“The gap is not only to Bangladesh — a few other countries can be put in that bracket as well,” Whatmore said. Australia is unbeaten in Test series at home in a decade and had 4-1 wins in its last two series — against England (home) and the West Indies (away) — after holding 4-0 leads in each. “The fact is, Bangladesh is a full Test-playing nation and my job is to get them up there, just get them firing,” he said. “It’s not an easy task by any means, but, we need some assistance, we need some help from a lot of different people.”

He’s arranging for some leading bowling and fielding coaches to work in specific areas with his players while they’re in Australia. The Bangladesh squad opened its tour today with a three-day match against a Queensland Academy of Sports selection at Allan Border Oval in Brisbane.

The Bangladeshis bowled the Queenslanders out for 201 and were 86 for three in reply at stumps on the first day, with Mohammed Ashraful smacking a four and a six on the last two balls of the evening session to finish unbeaten on 33.

Bangladesh has two other matches before the Tests against Australia at Darwin (July 18-22) and Cairns (July 25-29), cricket outposts that will be hosting Test matches for the first time.