By Oliver Brett BBC Sport

An all too frequent site for Bangladeshi batsmen in Tests

If Test cricket were to be compared to an oceanic food chain, Australia would be the Great White Shark with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh mere scraps for the minnows to feast on.

It is well-documented that Bangladesh have lost every single Test of the 26 they have played, bar one match severely curtailed by rain in which they were a poor second, ironically enough, to Zimbabwe.

But that was in late 2001, only a year after their inaugural Test.

More recently, the quality of their resistance in what generally continue to be one-sided affairs has improved from the blancmange level to something approaching shortcrust pastry.

In the first two weeks of March, Bangladesh will play five one-day internationals in Zimbabwe and it will frankly be a surprise if they win any of those.

The muscular all-rounders Andy Blignaut and Sean Ervine tip the balance heavily in favour of the home side in the shorter form of the game.

By far the best hope for the "Tigers" - Bangladesh's official pet name is currently a ridiculous misnomer - are the two Tests, the first of which starts on Thursday.

The three-match series they played in Pakistan in August and September 2003 provided a glaring beacon of hope for the thousands of fans in the poverty-stricken cities of Dhaka and Chittagong.

Zimbabwe will use every measure to combat Bangladesh

In the first of those, it needed an incredible debut from the Pakistani wunderkid Yasir Hameed to give the home side the win.

He scored 170 - nearly half his team's runs - in the first innings to give them a modest lead, and another century in the second innings when they had to chase 217 to win.

In the second Test, Bangladesh managed a stunning 66-run first innings lead, but blew it in the second innings.

And in the third, the one they really should have won, they dominated for three days only for Inzamam-ul-Haq single-handedly to get his team up to their target of 261 in a nerve-jangling one-wicket win.

Since then, they have played just one two-match series, at home to England, losing by seven wickets and 329 runs respectively.

But Michael Vaughan's men did not have everything their own way. Mark Butcher was dismissed for single figure scores on four occasions and their spinners were made to look inept.

Bangladesh could miss injured fast bowler Mashrafe Mortaza

In Zimbabwe, new captain Habibul Bashar will aim to come out of a pocket of poor form at the end of 2003 after some brilliant performances in the first nine months of the year.

Hannan Sarkar and Al Sahariar should have enough experience by now to feel confident of scoring runs against Zimbabwe, while the left-arm spinner Mohammad Rafique could be a danger.

Among the seam-bowlers, the talented youngster Mashrafe Mortaza is out injured, meaning Alamgir Kabir could be the man to unsettle the hosts.

Zimbabwe, however, will rightly be confident of victory.

Heath Streak is currently firing on all cylinders while Grant Flower and Stuart Carlisle can score big runs against the best.

They do, however, have a brittle batting line-up and the Tigers, if they all bare their teeth at once, have more than an outside chance.