Mohammad Ashraful conquers Murali again

"Sri Lanka crush brave Bangladesh" is the BBC's faintly patronising, but perhaps justified headline.

Bangladesh got thrashed. Again by an innings. This time they put up a bit more resistance however. Mushfiqur Rahim hit 80 and Mohammad Ashraful hit a wonderful 129 not out.

This isn't the first time that Mohammad Ashraful's scored runs against Sri Lanka. Nor is it the second time. Ashraful now averages 43.2 against Sri Lanka with three hundreds and a fifty.

To use Mohammad Ashraful as an exhibit in our defence of Bangladesh for a moment, he's 23 next week and this was his fourth Test hundred. Guess how many Test hundreds Steve Waugh, Mark Waugh, Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist and Mike Hussey had scored between them by the time they were 23.

None. This is slightly contrived because a couple of those players didn't make their debuts until after they were 23, but this doesn't dilute our point. There's a long, long way to go in the career of Mohammad Ashraful and he's by no means the youngster in this Bangladeshi team. He's actually one of the old-timers.

Give 'em a bit yet.