It was a match which could have passed by without attracting a huge amount of attention.
But for an England selection committee that has never settled on even one explosive batsman at the top of the order since Marcus Trescothick began his international exile - let alone a pair of them - .
And there is little doubt that it has heavily influenced the make-up of at the end of the month for the third edition of the ICC
"Bangladesh have made us work exceptionally hard," said England's Man of the Series Graeme Swann, the second best bowler in world cricket, according to official rankings.
Bangladesh have now lost 57 of the 66 Tests they have played, but although Swann is a man prone to comic asides, he was speaking with deadly seriousness.
As their record shows, the leading sides in Test cricket do not, as a rule, struggle to get past the winning-post against Bangladesh, but England did.
England's starting on Friday come with a sub-plot that threatens to be more fascinating than the main event.
Kevin Pietersen arrived in international cricket five years ago with such clamour that it seems preposterous for him to be locked in such a grim struggle to find form, and it is all starting to get a little bit out of hand.
Nobody could have predicted back in 2000 that a format of the game designed to capitalise on long English summer evenings could have mushroomed into the same format that has Bollywood superstars falling over themselves to get involved with.
But if the Noughties will be regarded as the decade in which cricket discovered Twenty20, it's also coming up to the 10th anniversary of . Their record reads like this: played 64, won three, drawn six, lost 55.
It's not exactly the most compelling run of results. And if we really wanted to twist the knife we could attach some mighty great asterisks to those three victories.
Jump to more content from this blog
After the solemn realisation at the age of 12 that I might not be good enough to play cricket for England I decided that the next best thing, writing about cricket, would have to suffice as a career. That's what I've been doing for the 91Èȱ¬ Sport website since 2001, in which time the sport has changed immensely. You can also follow me on .
For the latest updates across 91Èȱ¬ blogs,
visit the Blogs homepage.
You can stay up to date with Oliver Brett via these feeds.
Oliver Brett Feed(RSS)
Oliver Brett Feed(ATOM)
If you aren't sure what RSS is you'll find useful.
Visit the 91Èȱ¬ Sport website
Visit the Cricket index
91Èȱ¬ © 2014 The 91Èȱ¬ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.
