355-5

I heard this score while half asleep this morning and assumed someone in the Aussies must have enjoyed some mediocre bowling until I fully awoke from my slumber and realised that Shahriar Nafees doesn't play for the baggy greens.

Some time ago I made a deal with myself never to bet on cricket games involving Bangladesh and Zimbabwe - well "never" is not quite correct, not until either of these sides showed some signs of improvement. That day for the Bangladeshis may not be too far off. They remind me of Sri Lanka when they first entered test cricket - cannon fodder for their first few years before undergoing a reasonably rapid transformation into a competitive force. What you want to do as a punter is to get the timing right, for there is little doubt Bangladesh will one day be a competitive force in world cricket - all the ingredients are there (a huge population, a cricket-mad country) and as long as they continue to use offshore help for coaching and facilities, they will get there sooner rather than later.

Interesting checking the Betfair prices for this test - seems the prices were around Oz 1.10 Bangladesh 100 Draw 10 pregame (and that was with weather uncertainty); now the prices are Oz 1.72 Bangladesh 12 Draw 2.76. Now that this game has some life, it is tempting to get invovled but I won't - the ground is hosting it's first test match so there is very little information to judge how the pitch will behave on Days 4 and 5, and I have no idea how to assess the weather information and how any aqua would affect the ground. Betting is all about in some respects assessing relevant information, and when you can't do that it's not betting, just guessing.

So I'm not going to guess - I'll sit on the sidelines and secretly hope for the upset of the century - well, 2006 since Aussie did lose an ODI to these guys last year, didn't they :-)