[AsifTheManRahman]

With both Mashrafe and Tapash out of the team, we're left with Shahadat, who played only one test and is yet to take a wicket, and Rasel, the debutant. I don't know the latest on Rafique, but if he can't play either, then we will end up going into the tests with a bowling attack that is no better than that of a mediocre associate nation's; and if he does play, he will probably be coming in at a situation like 100/0, with nothing much to do.

this is very frustrating. one would have thought we'd been around for long enough to be able to show traces of our experience on the field. with our main players injured, we are actually back to where we were 4/5 years ago, when we had the likes of shanto and manju opening the bowling for us. the fact that we can't do anything about it simply adds to the frustration. here we are, standing in the 4th year of our test status, and we still have to field two opening bowlers with a single test between them.

the best that we can expect is to watch the opposition score something in excess of 600, and sit back and hope that our batters don't screw up. Although this is our A-team pace attack, it's not the same with our batting line-up.