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.

Mohammad Ashraful is batting at seven - why?

The problem with supporting virtually every team in the World Cup, as we're doing, is that while you always win, you also always lose.

So while we're glad that Sri Lanka beat Bangladesh because we've got THREE WHOLE POUNDS riding on it. We're equally sad that Bangladesh were beaten, because we've got a whole we're-right-and-you're-wrong thing going about them. A Bangladesh defeat adds weight to the 'we're wrong' column and that's a column we'd prefer to remain empty.

This is all slightly off-topic anyhow. Today's question to the ether is: Why is Mohammad Ashraful batting at seven for Bangladesh? Here's a batsman who has hit three Test centuries and one memorable one-day hundred against Australia. Don't Bangladesh want to make more use of him? He was 45 not out as Bangladesh's final wicket fell against Sri Lanka yesterday. It seems a waste.

Maybe he's being used as a Michael Bevan/Mike Hussey style 'finisher'. Much as we love and support Bangladesh, they're not always in a position to 'finish' a match.

Finally, a note for England's team management: Don't describe your older players as 'experienced'. Mohammad Ashraful's only 22 and he's played 92 one-day internationals. There is NO SUCH THING as an experienced England one-day player.