Bangladesh fans need extra patience

By Mark Richardson New Zealand batsman in Bangladesh

I was watching the TV in my hotel in Dhaka when it was broadcast that Bangladesh now have exactly zero points in the ICC Test Championship.

Khaled Mashud does a good job with the Bangladesh media

I got up this morning to read the reports in the Bangladesh papers on the latest humiliating innings-and-plenty defeat for the local boys.

If you were part of the Bangladesh team it was pretty harrowing reading as they all copped a barrage of criticism.

Most appears to be the written expression of a country whose love for the game of cricket is being severely tested by continuing defeat. Frustration is running rife.

In my opinion the media here need to wake up and smell the coffee.

Stop just looking at the national team and its failings in isolation and for goodness sake start to show the quality you keep demanding from your players - patience.

Unfortunately the style of our cricket was nothing like the challenge we will face in Australia

It took New Zealand an eternity to win a Test and it was not that long ago that Sri Lanka was pretty awful too.

What needs to be accepted is that it takes more than 11 quality cricketers to become a competitive cricket nation.

In fact while a Shoaib Akhtar, Muttiah Muralitharan or Richard Hadlee can help win you Tests it also takes a bit more than one superstar to turn a nation too.

Khaled Mashud stood up for himself afterwards, saying Bangladesh cricket would continue to lose unless they drastically improved their domestic infrastructure.

He couldn't have said it any better.

Winning Test nations are driven by a comprehensive internal structure that allows for player identification and development.

That means a first-class competition that provides enough quality competition and game time to prepare incumbents and hopefuls for the challenge at the higher level.

Also vitally important are playing surfaces that not just encourage but rather demand a style of play akin to Test play.

In New Zealand we are still striving to put all these pieces together and as such are still up and down in our results.

Bangladesh have enthusiasm and population on their side.

This has been a disappoiting series for Richardson personally

If they can take a holistic approach to their international results I'm sure they will experience the elation of a Test win in the future.

Some of the most promising players we came up against on this tour were still teenagers.

Our boys did what they came here to do - we overcame the pressure of expectation, won and won well.

Unfortunately, however, the style of cricket was nothing like the challenge we will face in Australia.

We are going from playing the worst to the best and now the pressure goes from expectation to the pressure of hard opposition.

Personally, expectation has always been my downfall and it showed with poor form on this tour.

However I thrive in a challenge and hope the extreme challenge of Glenn McGrath and Co. can bring the best out of me again.