Bangladesh look for more improvement

MANCHESTER, England (AP):

Bangladesh go into the second Test with England at Old Trafford today looking to sustain their improvement and silence critics who continue to question their Test match credentials.

Bangladesh ultimately lost the first Test against England at Lord's, but demonstrated their improve-ment by forcing England to toil for four days and two sessions to finish off opponents they were expected to beat comfortably.

Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan feels his side is tantalisingly close to making a breakthrough in the Test arena.

"We know we will win some games if we win sessions, day by day, but we need to improve our bowling, especially in these conditions," he said. "At home we can depend on our spinners, but here we have to depend on our fast bowlers, so they need to learn quickly."

When the sides meet at Old Trafford, Bangladesh will be aiming to avoid defeat for the first time against England.

Disappointment at losing by eight wickets at Lord's was tempered with pride in a competitive performance by their batsmen. The highlight was a flamboyant 103 in the second innings from Tamim Iqbal, who said he had been inspired by some characteristically blunt remarks about his country by the former England opener Geoffrey Boycott.

Could not sleep

"I saw him commenting that Bangladesh should not play Test cricket," Tamim said. "I felt very bad and I could not sleep till 1 a.m. It made me determined to do something to show him.

"They are senior cricketers who we respect. We expect them to respect us as well, I wanted to prove to the world that we are getting there."

England coach Andy Flower concurred. saying "Other people have talked Bangladesh down, but we haven't.

"We respect them. They fought very hard in Bangladesh and they fought very hard here."

The gap between the sides was no wider than the gulf that separated England from Australia or the West Indies just a decade or two ago, when ritual English humiliation was the norm.

And statistics confirm the impression that Bangladesh are improving.

Their aggregate score in the first Test at Lord's was 664, their fifth highest in Test cricket, and two of the four higher scores were also made this year.

Tamim's stand of 185 with Imrul Kayes for the first wicket of the second innings was a new record for Bangladesh and the top three batsmen all scored 50 in a Test innings for the first time.