There was lot of joking going on in the media box at the Rose Bowl after the Tigers' capitulation against the West Indies on Wednesday and most of them were at the expense of captain Rajin Saleh.

But former England bowler Derek Pringle, who is now a cricket correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, was more understanding.

"If you perform well, nobody will be making fun of you," said Pringle.

"Your boys failed to cope with the English conditions which was the main reason for the poor performance," observed Pringle.

SENSIBLE JAVED
Tigers opener Javed Omar Belim managed only two runs against the West Indies and became the target of verbal abuse from a dejected group of Bangladeshi supporters when he came out on the balcony of the dressing room.

As expletives were being hurled at Javed, a couple of on-duty policemen intervened and took two of the supporters to the nearby police station for unruly behaviour.

Some time later, the police contacted Javed for lodging an official complaint. However, Javed said he did not want any action against his fellow countrymen and the two were released.

Bangladeshi fans here, most of whom have made long journeys to get to Southampton, are outraged by the poor showing of the country's cricketers and chanted abuses at the players and officials until the team left the venue for their hotel.

"Not only the players, officials should be punished too for this debacle," said one fan Tamim, who vowed never to watch another Bangladesh match.

ATHAR TALKS!
After some unsuccessful attempts, the travelling Bangladeshi jouznalists finally managed to bring words out of selector Athar Ali Khan's mouth.

The former Bangladesh batsman, who is part of the four-member selection committee, is in England to watch the performance of the team. He has refused to comment on any squad related matters during the last few days but broke his silence on Wednesday.

While admitting he was frustrated with the overall performance, Athar said that he was confident that Bangladesh would fare better in the home series against New Zealand.

Athar also was not prepared to take responsibility of the team's bad showing as he felt it was the cricketers who should be doing it right in the middle.

"We picked the best possible side which is our main duty. What can we do if the boys can not play properly? But I still have full confidence in the players," said Athar.

When asked about the inclusion of Khaled Mahmud against the West Indies after his surprise omission in the first match against South Africa, Athar made a contradictory statement to that of coach Dav Whatmore, who is also a selector.

"We felt the need for the presence of a senior player in the XI and that's why we picked Mahmud," informed Athar.

Whatmore had earlier explained that he wanted an extra paceman in the side and that's why Mahmud got the nod.

"I don't know what the coach had said," Athar said when his attention was drawn to the contradiction adding that he spoke from what he knew.