Read the full story here.

Not the dedicated fans so much as the more casual viewers and the wider sporting public.

It’s like this, see. The poor old Tigers have had it in the ear for not being up to scratch when it comes to meeting the playing standards of the game’s most exacting form. Tests are supposed to be testing, went the argument, and this wasn’t even slightly, at least as far as England were concerned.

And that got us to thinking. Talk to those more generalist sports fans, or venture into the shallower and more mainstream waters of the popular prints, and what impression would you gain of Test cricket?

Well, we venture that you might form the impression that it’s mind-numbingly slow, with impenetrable rules and fatally declining audiences.

You might get the idea that it’s an expensive, class-ridden luxury for die-hard purists while all the glamorous young things are dining out on the egalitarian “Bollywood Masala” of Twenty20.

Furthermore you might also think that England aren’t a very good Test side, and that the entire long form of the game is that its last gasp.

Wrong, wrong and wrong. But you already know that.

As a cricket fan who would most probably place Test cricket at the pinnacle of their viewing experience, you most probably don’t give any of these criticisms a moment’s credence. (Or, at least, you recognise them a distortions of other, more subtle and less soundbite-worthy problems.)

But what we have started to wonder is this. Why don’t the powers-that-be, the people marketing cricket to the populace, make much more of this whole Test-means-testing concept?

Why are they not shooting down the unpleasant stereotypes listed above by portraying the sport as the ultimate showdown between disciplines, the toughest test of a player’s mental and physical skills that you will see on a pitch of any kind this summer?

Where are the tales of mental and physical challenges surmounted, of bowlers’ skill and ingenuity in flushing out their opponents’ weaknesses, of batsmen who resist attack for hour after hour?

Why, in short, is Test cricket not “extreme cricket?”

You will probably hate this idea and, actually, you might not be wrong to do so.

But it does seems to us that Twenty20 is rather being allowed to occupy the marketing high ground at the moment, and that the long form needs a striking concept of its own. And this one is going begging.

Mr Clarke, our rates are very reasonable.

After the first Test, when Bangladesh put up a decent five-day fight and looked on for a draw at points, to a situation where they lost 20 wickets in two sessions. And that after Tamim Iqbal scored a popular and stylish century in his first innings, displaying a far more disciplined and contained batting style than in his earlier outing.

Also bearing in mind that, out of the nine nations currently in the ICC Test rankings, it is only fifth-placed England that have done ninth-placed Bangladesh so comprehensively.

Test Match Special was required to kill quite a bit of time afterwards while the podium was being built and had one of the most interesting fill-in discussions of the entire event. Geoff Boycott, of course, had already made his views about the quality of Bangladesh’s cricket perfectly clear.

But Michael Vaughan’s views, while expressed more moderately, were every bit as trenchant. Bangladesh are not a Test side and tours like this are not helping them one bit.

Since then the Cow Corner blog has called for them to be relegated from Test cricket altogether.

So, what’s the answer?

Anyone who loves Test cricket wants to see it played. Therefore a good spread of nations prepared to make the considerable commitment of playing cricket at this level is essential.

But anyone who loves Test cricket also wants to see it played properly – and Vaughan made the wholly convincing argument that the whole point of it is to be testing. This wasn’t really.

Boycott’s suggestion, which seemed quite sensible to us, was for the ICC to fund Bangladesh to go on tour to places where they would experience a variety of conditions not applicable in South Asia – playing the English county sides, for example, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

Another idea which we thought appealing was expressed by The Short Third Man, who suggested that there should be two Test divisions, so Bangladesh could get themselves a decent game against sides like The Netherlands, Ireland and Kenya.

While this opens up a whole set of new arguments about how it would be structured, whether promotion or relegation would be appropriate and how you make sure all nations are facing as wide a range of opposition as possible, we have yet to see much of a downside. Although we are sure there must be one and, if you know what it is, do feel free to leave a comment.

We’ve seen that there’s a huge amount of goodwill towards the plucky underdog – but this series has probed the limitations of that goodwill pretty thoroughly.

And unless we want to see the feelgood story of Afghanistan at the ICC World Twenty20 fizzle out in a lot of grumbling about inadequate bowling, this is a problem worth taking on.

For all lovers of Test cricket, surely it is worth considering that one of the best forms of fighting contraction is to expand?

We just need to see it done in a way that makes sure everyone can get a decent game that’s appropriate to their abilities.

Read the full post here.

Read his full thoughts on Tamim Iqbal and yesterday’s play here.

Read Cow Corner’s complete review of yesterday’s play here.

Read the full story here.

Read the full report here.

Read its full post here.

While our national Test team is still (ahem) some way off achieving skipper Andrew Strauss’ stated ambition of getting ahead of Sri Lanka, South Africa, India and Australia to top the rankings, no-one generally very seriously questions their ability to play in that company.

Whereas Bangladesh, only granted Test status in 2000, often finds its worthiness to engage in Test cricket at all under question. This is not an attitude shared by The Nurdler. Few enough nations play international cricket as it is and those prepared to take it seriously enough to win Test status should be welcomed with open arms – however, Boycott is on the radio as we speak accusing them of not being a proper Test side.

Teams in the top half of the Test rankings that need to play teams in the bottom half have a problem. If you wipe the floor with them, your players are accused of having an easy life, padding their averages and (if English) not facing a sufficient challenge to prepare for the inevitable next Ashes Test that we are always fretting about. (Like bills, they come round with such horrid regularity.)

If you fail to wipe the floor with them then you’re simply not trying hard enough. Why, they’ve only been playing Test cricket for two minutes. My mum could beat them with a stick of rhubarb. It’s a dark day when you can’t score a few runs over / bowl out quickly / enforce a follow-on over (delete as appropriate).

England have seen a bit of the Bangladeshi Test team recently and the trite-if-true adage is holding good. In fact, this week we have predictably been done both ways.

When the team came to Lord’s in the return fixture for our spring visits to Dhaka and Chittagong, we have been reminded that they possess a top-order batting line-up that could teach Paul Collingwood a thing or two about determination, and anyone you care to name a few lessons on style and positivity.

But their bowlers have not really troubled England at all, allowing a first-innings total of 505 which led Bangladesh into following on despite the best efforts of Iqbal, Siddique and Kayes. And their best, it seems, can be rather accomplished and entertaining even if they are not yet the complete Test package.

So, when their batsmen were on we were failing to come to terms with an inferior team and when their bowlers were on our players were filling their boots.

Despite a welcome return to the lovely slow pace of Test cricket, following the hideous overstimulation of the IPL and then the rapid-fire and frankly shocking success of the Twenty20 World Cup, it’s not always been that much fun to follow. Even while giving Bangladesh their due for the times when their side has been playing superbly.

Day two in particular, from the perspective of supporting the bowling side, was a long, ugly, unsatisfying slog that left the occupants of Nurdler Towers feeling grumpy and sour and out of sorts in the way that only deadlocked Test cricket can do.

In fact, while sitting in a state of agonising anxiety waiting for the recent Twenty20 World Cup victory to start, and while watching the world’s lowest-ranked Test nation grow fat off our anodyne bowling, we have wondered – briefly – why the bloody hell we bother with this stupid sport.

We should say straight away that this is not an attempt to compare the respective formats – that’s far too long an argument when a wicket could fall at any moment. What has struck us is simply the contrasting experiences of supporting the England cricket team over the last month or so.

Winning the earlier tournament was a great lift for the spirits, it raised a smile for days afterwards, it was an unexpected reason for optimism about what the next year might bring. Perhaps best of all, it was a tremendous poke in the eye to everyone who thinks sport begins and ends with football.

But it rarely came close to the pleasures of a good Test – except perhaps at the point when Australia went about overturning Pakistan’s magnificent total in the semi-final and did so with just one ball to spare.

It is perhaps an unfortunate coincidence of scheduling that we should follow up that accessible win with a workmanlike contest against the world’s lowest-ranked Test side – a kind of reverse serendipity.

There’s plenty of enjoyment to be got from the gentle tempo, from the Lord’s ambience, from the enjoyment of Tamim’s batting. But these are very nuanced and subtle pleasures compared to what came before. And it takes a fairly nuanced and subtle sports fan to appreciate them.

As opposed to the “we rule the world” mentality that follows from things like World Cups.