Bangladesh eye Test Chance

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Bangladesh eye Test chance

First Test, Harare: Zimbabwe v Bangladesh
Match begins 0800 GMT

Bashar (left) led Bangladesh to a warm-up victory last weekend
Bangladesh have their best chance yet to win a Test match when they take on Zimbabwe in Harare.

The Tigers are still waiting for a win after 26 matches, although their sole draw came in a rain-hit match at home to Zimbabwe in 2001.

Their hosts have not won a Test since the second match of the same series.

But captain Heath Streak said: "We've been playing good cricket and there's no reason why we shouldn't dominate and win both the Test and one-day series."

However, Bangladesh have improved greatly since their last encounter with Zimbabwe, running Pakistan close in two Tests during their tour last August.

Under coach Dav Whatmore, they also forced England to work for a 2-0 series victory in October.

With Habibul Bashar taking over as captain from Khaled Mahmud, they proved their calibre with a 29-run victory over Zimbabwe A at the same ground last weekend.

It's important that we learn to win, and part of that is beating teams like Bangladesh

Heath Streak
Uncapped medium-pacer Tariq Aziz Khan strengthened his Test claims with figures of 6-46 and could fill the gap left by pace bowler Mashrafe Mortaza's knee injury.

Zimbabwe's last Test series was against West Indies late last year, when they got the best of a drawn first match before conceding the second.

Last month Zimbabwe took part in the one-day triangular series in Australia, where they failed to win a match against either the hosts or India.

"We were competitive in a few games and we managed to run them to the wire a couple of times, even after losing (batsmen) Craig Wishart and Mark Vermeulen to injuries," Streak said.

"We were disappointed that we couldn't pull off a couple of victories having got ourselves into positions where we could have.

"But India and Australia are the two best sides in world cricket and the guys took a lot of confidence out of the fact that we were able to be competitive with a very young side."

Still without Wishart, who injured his knee, and Vermeulen, who had his skull fractured by a short ball, Zimbabwe will rely heavily on some big-hitting all-rounders to boost a brittle top order.

"It's important that we learn to win, and part of that is beating teams like Bangladesh," Streak added.

"They'll be asked to play under the sort of pressure we were under against India and Australia."

The two sides play back-to-back Tests followed by a five-match one-day series.



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Zimbabwe (from): Heath Streak (captain), Andy Blignaut, Stuart Carlisle, Dion Ebrahim, Sean Ervine, Gavin Ewing, Grant Flower, Trevor Gripper, Douglas Hondo, Blessing Mahwire, Stuart Matsikenyeri, Raymond Price, Tatenda Taibu.

Bangladesh (from): Habibul Bashar (captain), Mohammad Ashraful, Tareq Aziz, Tapash Baisya, Anwar Hossain, Shahriar Hossain, Manjural Islam, Alamgir Kabir, Alok Kapali, Khaled Mashud, Mohammad Rafique, Mushfiqur Rahman, Rajin Saleh, Al Sahariar, Hannan Sarkar.

Source: BBC