The Kensington Oval in Barbados is the quickest and bounciest wicket in all West Indies, and the young Bangladeshis were all at sea against England. Unlike the Guyana wicket, this one was a seam bowler's dream and the English quickies made full use of it.

Our weakness against genuine quick bowling was brutally exposed at the Kensington Oval in Barbados. I have always stated that our frontline batters are technically ill- equipped to play genuine seam bowling efficiently. Very rarely do we see them move back and across, which is the cardinal rule for getting behind the ball.

Moreover, this initial movement enables the batsman to judge where his off stump is located, which in turn allows him to choose which ball to play and which one to let go. On a seaming wicket you need to be judicious in your shot selection. Because they have no idea where the off stump is, we see our players fishing all the time. This is living dangerously.

Due to the lack of this technique, which is so obvious in players like Shariar Nafees, Tamim, Iqbal, Bashar, Aftab and the others, the English bowlers were made to look more dangerous than they really were. This same attack on the same pitch would be handled with considerable ease by others. The Barbados wicket will produce plenty of runs, as we will see in the future matches.

I was somewhat surprised with the selection of Shahriar Nafees. I thought Javed Omar would be more suited to play on such a wicket and, after two consecutive starts that were decent considering most standards, his omission may not have been a judicious decision. But the selectors know better.

There isn't much to write about our batting in this match. Most of the batsmen looked extremely uncomfortable against the bounce and pace of Anderson, Mahmood and Flintoff. Bashar's discomfort was more than obvious as he fidgeted most of the time that he was there. His dismissal was bizarre.

A terrible shot played by Nafees, a dropped catch followed by an aimless throw by Vaughn, and then Bashar's complete loss of interest in the proceedings of the game resulted in his walk back to the pavilion. Tamim played two glorious shots and then failed to negotiate the extra bounce, a delivery which he could have very well left alone.

Ashraful got a beauty from Anderson while Aftab played one away from his body, and both of them nicked deliveries into the hands of Nixon. Mushfiq has an extremely high back-lift, which is not prudent when you are playing genuine quickies, and by the time his bat came down Flintoff's delivery beat him all ends up. Not only did his bat come down late, he also picked the wrong line.

Sakib is the only one who played with some degree of confidence, and showed the others that the wicket was not a minefield. Even though he struggled at times with the bounce and speed, he hung in there and played some productive shots during the course of his invaluable innings.

Mashrafe should have known better than to take a cross-batted slog at Panesar, especially after playing himself in. His loss was a blow to the efforts of Sakib, who applied himself very well.

As long as Sakib and Mashrafe were batting the unsubstantiated demons of the wicket seemed to be a non-issue. Rafique came and departed without any reason. Sakib ran out of partners as our innings folded with nearly 17 overs to spare -- a cardinal sin in limited over cricket.

What pleasantly surprised the cricketing fans all over was the fact that the Bangladeshis once again showed that their recent successes were no "flashes in the pan." Defending a paltry score of 143 on an even-paced wicket that was not a turner, and that too against a well-established and experienced England batting line-up was remarkable.

No one, other than the eleven Bangladeshi players, gave the Tigers any chance of even making a game out of it. England had their tails up when Vaughn and Bell went in about 30 minutes before lunch. What they did not realize was that this Bangladesh squad had tasted blood, and they were not ready to submit without a fight.

Rasel struck first by removing Bell, and then had Vaughn nearly caught behind. All of this happened within the first 5 overs. Had Vaughn's chance been taken the score would have read 11 for 2. Now we know how crucial Vaughn's 30 was to his team.

What we saw after lunch was tantalizing cricket. The spinning trio of Rafique, Razzak and Sakib showed the world what guile and deception can do, even on the flattest of wickets. There was very little turn for the trio, but the variations almost did the Englishmen in.

Their best players struggled and, one by one, they surrendered to the flight and deception of Rafique and Razzak, until Nixon and Colingwood saw them home after a spending a nerve-wracking time at the wicket. The one that got Flintoff was a beauty.

Imagine what the result of the match could have been had we set the Englishmen a target of 190 to 200 runs. Vaughn's career with the English team would surely be in jeopardy. We failed to bat our full quota of overs, and paid the price.

What we are so proud of is the fact that we now know how to take the battle to the opposition, regardless of its strength and reputation. Our youngsters are in the groove and all we need to do is fix a few areas, particularly in our batting.

We can challenge the best in the world, and that's what we have always wanted to do. Opposing skippers are talking about the quality of our boys, and their ability to fight on irrespective of the odds. This is all good for Bangladesh's cricket, but we need consistency.

Against Ireland on Sunday, we need to produce our best batting effort. Ireland has two good seamers who will enjoy the bouncy pitch of Barbados, so I am sure Whatmore will be talking to the boys a lot tonight and thereafter. We have to learn how to play on good bouncy tracks, and then we can truly place ourselves against the best in the world.

Hopefully, we will show much better shot selection, and be able to set a good total that our bowlers can defend successfully. The Kensington Oval wicket is good for at least 250 to 280 runs, provided we bat with some common sense.

Yousuf Rahman (Babu) is a former national cricketer.