But the reality is that Bangladesh have yet to prove their point as an improving side in Test cricket despite the fact they had a high-profile coach like Dav Whatmore for the last four years.

Every single Bangladeshi present at the Sinhalese Sports club ground yesterday felt that they had become a laughing stock.

Coach Sarwar Imran and former national captain turned selector Akram Khan are no exceptions as they believe that this has happened time and again because the problem remains the same since Bangladesh's entry into the elite arena in 2000.

Former pace bowler Imran was incidentally the Bangladesh coach in the inaugural Test match against India at Dhaka and then was again involved with the national side during the 2003 home series against South Africa.

"It is painful to see that we are still almost same as six years ago. Nothing has changed in our approach to Test cricket because we are making the same old mistakes," said a disappointed Imran, who has returned to the national side as an assistant coach for the tour.

"We have a bunch of talented cricketers but I must say that we hardly worked out on anything to stay at this level with our heads high. We made 400 runs in the first innings and then were dismissed for below hundred in the inaugural Test (in November 2000). Do you think we have improved much from that standard? Nobody believes that Bangladesh can score 300 runs consistently and in that case what have we achieved in the last five or six years?" queried Imran.

"Just imagine what (Mohammad) Ashraful did. First he played two reverse sweeps against (Muttiah) Muralidaran and how a batsman of his standard then went for a lofted shot (which dismissed him). Rajin (Saleh) also, suddenly and unnecessarily, tried to push (Tillakaratne) Dilshan although he played defensively to those deliveries in his innings. We repeatedly told them not to play high-risk shots but ultimately what happened?" he fumed.

"I think we are not mentally tough to sustain at this level. Our batsmen still think that scoring 30-40 is good enough to keep them in the team. When a batsman scores 30 runs, his duty is to make a big one like what the Sri Lankan batsmen did in this match. Our batsmen are too ambitious. At this level, everybody should cope with the pressure, like sledging," he observed.He raised further questions about the state of Bangladesh's bowling which was badly exposed in the match, especially the pathetic performance of the two left-arm spinners.

"I must say our bowling standard has deteriorated. Actually our players are not good learners and they hardly have any personal drive to improve their standards. At this level, you can't depend solely on a coach. I don't know whether they have any vision," he said.

Imran however said that the real problem actually lies on our poor domestic first-class structure.

"You don't expect that everything will be alright in a day without proper planning in the domestic level. I will give you one example from my first-hand experience so you can understand what is our four-day cricket like. I know many players being happy if they were dropped from the (divisional) squad," he said.

"We have to arrange a meaningful four-day competition, not a fun one. The time has come to plan long-term to make it competitive. Otherwise we will not find the solution to this problem," he suggested by recalling his experience to watch first-class matches in Australia.

Akram also echoed with Imran's sentiment.

"There is no shortcut. We should improve our domestic standard otherwise it would be difficult to avoid this kind of embarrassments. We desperately need a long-term planning," said the former national captain.

"I can't understand how a player (Mohammad Ashraful) was so inconsistent after making a hundred on his debut. Look at Malinga. He was an ordinary bowler two years ago and now he is the main weapon in his side. Two or three of our players like Habibul Bashar and Ashraful should perform consistently like Aravinda de Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga did in their early days," he said.