The Gulf side cruised to victory over the Group F whipping boys, taking a two-goal lead into the half-time break thanks to efforts from Hussain Yasser and Adel Lamy.

A third from Saad Al Shammari rounded out the win to give the Qataris a maximum 12 points from four games and leave Hong Kong and Uzbekistan to battle it out for second spot.

Qatar, who beat Bangladesh 4-1 three weeks ago in the away clash, won the return fixture with consummate ease although both sides struggled at the beginning of the match to acclimatise to oppressive humidity.

The home side broke the deadlock in the 25th minute when former Antwerp attacker Hussain Yasser flicked the ball into the Bangladesh net after receiving a pass from Saad Al Shammri on the right flank.

Five minutes later, Adel Lamy doubled the lead. Despite his marker shadowing him, Lamy went airborne to receive a ball from the right and smartly deflected the pass into an open net with Bangladesh goalkeeper Aminul Haque embarrassingly out of position.

In the 52nd minute, Al Shammri got on the score sheet with a close range shot after latching on to a pass delivered from just outside the Bangladesh box by the tireless Hussain Yasser. After receiving the ball, Al Shammri took a couple of strides before launching a bullet some five metres away from the goalline, giving Aminul no chance.

With no quality strikers up front, Bangladesh relied on a tight defence to quell the attacks of the Qatari forwards and midfielders, especially in the second half.

With national team regular and midfielder Wisam Rizq struggling for form, Qatar found it hard to go past Nazrul and Parvez Babu, who defended astutely to restrict the hosts, who will go on to take part in the Asian Cup finals for the seventh consecutive time.

Qatar play Hong Kong on October 11 while Bangladesh clash with Uzbekistan on the same day in the fifth and penultimate round.

"I am fairly satisfied with the way we played today. It was not easy to be aggressive in such a warm and extremely humid conditions which made running and sprinting difficult. I think the players of both teams showed quite a bit of fight to play in such tough conditions," said Qatar coach Dzemaluddin Musovic.

"I think Bangladesh played better today than what we saw in Chittagong. I hope they can improve themselves and play with commitment like they showed today," he added.

Bangladesh coach Hassanuzzaman Babloo was also content to keep the scoreline rather slim.

"I said on Tuesday that we came here to play football, not win a match. With the kind of (ageing) players we have in the team, we simply could not have beaten a strong team like Qatar. Before this match, we had played three games and lost all of them. We were in no condition to compete against the hosts.

"Seven or eight of the players from this match will quit the national team soon. We will pick a new team for our next match against Hong Kong. Our next target is Asian Games and you will see a young team for that event. Our players haven't played much football in the last two years. After our loss against Qatar in Chittagong, we have been simply training at home.

"We had no match practice before coming to Doha. And when you don't have match practice, you can't beat a team like Qatar. I am hopeful that a professional league -- which will be introduced soon in Bangladesh for the first time -- will help us produce quality players and achieve better results," the former national winger said.

Meanwhile, reigning champions Japan, three-time winners Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined Australia -- the first qualifiers -- and co-hosts Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand next year's finals.

The Japanese earned their place in South East Asia with a 1-0 win over Yemen in Group A while Saudi Arabia maintained a perfect record in qualifying as they came back from a goal down to pummel India 7-1 in Jeddah.