Tomorrow, at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh meet for the first time in a Test match. It will be Zimbabwe's 49th Test in nine seasons, while it will be only the second for Bangladesh. The odds must favour the home side to win convincingly, quite possibly by an innings.
Experience is the critical factor.
Bangladesh, in their matches to date, have shown talent but not the experience and staying power that is necessary at Test level which is perhaps inevitable. Since gaining their independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh did not play first-class cricket again until three seasons ago. In the last three seasons they have suffered some embarrassing humiliations away from home in the longer game and have only a few matches against the A teams from other countries behind them at representative level, apart from their inaugural Test against India a few months ago. They found, as Zimbabwe did in their inaugural Test against the same opposition in 1992, that adrenaline helped them to play above themselves at the start of the match and they posted a total of more than 400. But they lacked the staying power and went down, in the end, to a heavy defeat.