One more game still to go in the five-match series but it could hardly mean anything for the Tigers as they were dealt with the cruel reality of losing the series after Zimbabwe had taken an unassailable 3-1 lead, winning the fourth match by seven wickets in Harare yesterday.

It had been long buzzing in the Bangladesh cricket team's tent that the series against Zimbabwe provided the Tigers an opportunity to taste the first-ever series victory abroad, even if it was against a dwindling side.

And even nobody doubted the skipper's (Habibul Bashar) wish of a 'series whitewash' of the southern African nation before leaving home and most importantly coach Dav Whatmore, who always loves to play safe, was vocal by bracketing his side as 'favourites' in the contest, a comment that made internationals headlines.

And they had a decent start winning the lone practice game by five wickets. But all went wrong once the main battle started against a team, which had learnt just a day before the first match that they will play under a new captain (Prosper Utseya) in the series.

Now just think that an unfancied Zimbabwe with a bunch of young and inexperienced cricketers have secured the series with one match to spare, leaving an 'improving' Bangladesh to answer a hundreds of questions.

There were many who hoped that Bangladesh would bounce back from their third-match nightmare to script another 'fightback" that they had showed against the same opponents at home to clinch their first-ever series victory. In January 2005, Bangladesh came back from 2-0 down to remarkably win the series 3-2 at home.

But it just proved to be an illusion as the Zimbabweans simply outclassed the self-proclaimed favourites in the fourth game to clinch the series following their two-wicket wins in the first and third matches. Bangladesh won the second match by 62 runs.

Yet another series of poor applications by the batsmen dashed the Tigers' hope to make comeback in the series. Stand-in skipper Khaled Mashud won the toss after Bangladesh's three abortive efforts but it could not bring anything positive for them as they hit their lowest total in the series with 206-9 in stipulated 50 overs.

Believe it or not, Bangladeshi batsmen looked helpless against off-spinner Prosper Utseya and part-timer Hamilton Masakadza and there were two senseless run-outs (Mohammad Ashraful and Forhad Reza), which virtually killed Bangladesh's chances of salvation.

On the other hand, Zimbabwe enhanced their performance with a decent batting to overhaul the total with 8.2 overs to spare and reach cloud nine.

Bangladesh, in every department, failed to serve the purpose in the series although they had promised before the tour that they would use the 'easy' trip to gain confidence before the ICC Champions Trophy to be held in India in October-November.

But the fact is that Bangladesh will definitely try to erase the memory of the tour as early as possible.

One might have been raised a valid question whether there was any need of a renowned and expensive coach and the large number of supporting staff the team carry for this kind of amateurish cricket played by the national cricketers.

If anybody is still ignorant about what has been happening, he or she can go through the scorecards of the last four matches to find how badly they have played in the series of high aspirations.