Bangladesh scored 77 all out in the first game against an injury-hit Indian attack. Compared to that in the second match of the TVS cup, Bangladesh scored 207 all out against an under-strength Indian attack. Anyone would say that its a huge improvement. But if he would look at the match in between of 211 all out against South Africa, then he would be thinking otherwise.

First of all, as said above that it was an understrength Indian attack that did not have Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh. Secondly, the credit for Bangladesh to get past 200 runs goes more to the inexperieced Indian bowling attack and to the sloppy Indian fielding in the end of Bangladesh's innings.

And then if anyone would look at the scorecard of the match, then he would say that it was a pretty close match in the end with 6 Indian batsman out to score only 208 runs. So the bowlers and fielders must have played very well. But that was not the case either. It was actually the poor shot selection by some of the Indian batsman that made it possible.

At least the main thing is that the younger players like Mohammad Ashraful and Alok Kapali learnt about the inroads into the Indian batting line-up, which might come handy in the future.

Performance-wise, it was Habibul Bashar and Mehrab Hossain who should get the nods with the bat. But both of them played poor shots and got out. Bashar scored a fifty after a long time. And although Mehrab was dropped twice, he was getting some of the confidences back. But the bad thing in the batting is that too many shots were played straight to the fielders. Both Bashar and Akram Khan also played and missed a lot of balls than they should have.

Javed Omar and Alok Kapali also played bad shots to get out early. Mohammad Ashraful showed some of his technical flaws. What was impressing was that Khaled Mashud was able to play for singles whereas Akram Khan was missing the same types of balls.

In the end the tail enders number ten and eleven showed that there is some team spirit existing in the team by carrying on a partnership of about 20 odd runs in about the same number of balls. But it was also due to the inexperience of the Indian McGrath like action Salvi's fault rather than a credit for Tapash Baisya and Tareq Aziz.

In the bowling department, it was quite evident that Tareq Aziz was giving the wrong impressions as a pace bowler, that he is not good enough to bowl for Bangladesh with the new ball when the other pace bowlers are fit to play. Tapash Baisya did bowl some good deliveries, but he was also punished for bowling short and wide to Sehwag. Although a couple of hard chances were given to the fielders off the bowling of both Tapash Baisya and Tareq Aziz, but as the Bangladeshi fielders are not like extra-ordinary like Australia or even like Zimbabwe, so Bangladesh failed to take a single wicket until spinner Mohammad Rafique came in.

Rafique took the wicket of Sehwag alright, but it was already too late to even hope for an upset as the score was already 79 in 10 overs by that time. The Indian number three wicket keeper batsman Parthiv Patel gave an easy chance at the wicket keeper, but Khaled Mashud was late in reacting and so Tapash Baisya remained wicketless in the match.

Khaled Mahmud did show some good bowling changes until this match which was lacking in Bangladesh attack for a long time, but in this match, for the first time, Khaled Mahmud showed some sort of weakness in his leadership. He kept on bowling himself when Mohammad Rafique could have continued at one end. It was after the 15 overs finished when Mohammad Rafique was brought back in.

The second Indian wicket fell off the bowling of Alok Kapali, and as said above that if Bangladeshi fielding would have been better, then Kapali could have taken a wicket or two more. Bangladeshi fielding also lost opportunties of run outs a lot within the first fifteen to twenty overs, but when a run out was accomplished, it was actually after India was in a comfortable position in winning the match.

However, it was a good effort for Alok Kapali to take the wicket by the way of a run out. And why not - it was only Alok Kapali and Javed Omar Belim who looked to be the best fielders of the Bangladesh team. Mohammad Ashraful also chipped in with a wicket in the end as Indian batsman were trying to hurry to their win and got out in the process.

There is the rumour of a new coach coming for Bangladesh, well I think that the new coach will have to do a lot of work in every department of the game for Bangladesh - starting from the scratch.

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