Bangladesh does not mind being the new kid on the international cricket playground and an automatic target for the big bullies.

In a frank and refreshing airport interview here today Trevor Chappell, the third of the famous Australian cricketing brothers and now coach of Bangladesh, said he had not been offended by forecasts of disaster for the Bangladeshi four-match, two-Test tour of New Zealand.

Last month even the chief executive of New Zealand Cricket, Martin Snedden, said the official hope was that New Zealand should win the two Tests (at Hamilton and Wellington) with style, and overwhelming superiority.

"That's not a problem," said Chappell - the temporary tour spokesman while the newly-appointed manager and assistant manager were delayed because of visa problems.

"We accept that is the aim of every other team to beat us, they do not want to take any chances playing against a newcomer," said Chappell.

"That is a good attitude from our point of view, too. We have recently played Zimbabwe (losing the Tests 0-1 and the one-dayers 0-3) and they are closest to us on the ladder.

"Now we are playing New Zealand, higher up the ladder, in New Zealand conditions, and that is good for us, an extra challenge."

Chappell and his captain Khaled Mashud said the Bangladeshi aim was to play positive cricket, to score runs at a good pace so the bowlers had time to bowl out the opposition. The positive attitude would remain as long as his team had a chance of success, said Chappell. When there was no chance of a win, then Bangladesh would look for a draw.

The wonder is that Bangladesh have made as much progress as they have, playing seven Tests and close to 40 one-dayers, with very narrow home playing resources.

There are six first-class sides in Bangladesh, in spite of the 130,000,000 population now adopting cricket as their favourite sport, and a first class competition has only been running for two years.

Now Bangladesh has a five-year plan in place. Five new first-class grounds are planned, five Sri Lankan coaches are setting up the infrastructure for Under-13, 15, 17 and 19 organisations.

It will take time, said Chappell, to identify the good players and to bring them up through the system.

Some teenagers have already been fast-tracked to Test level.

"Mashrafe Mortaza, is one of these," said Chappell. "Eight months ago no-one knew anything about him, he came from nowhere as quite a quick bowler. He was looked at for the Under-17, then the Under-19 and the next thing you know he is in the national side.

"He is reasonably fast, in the 130-140kph range. He has a lot to learn, but he can hurry-up the batsmen when he lands the ball in the right place."

Mashrafe is listed as born in 1983, one year older than the 17-year-old prodigy Mohammad Ashraful, who became the youngest scorer of a Test century against Sri Lanka earlier this year - and also the youngest to score a century on debut.

Chappell is warm in his praise of Ashraful's batting, and his promise as a leg-spinner.

Chappell also realises that his team is young - several older players were discarded - and faced a steep learning curve.

"We will have to work hard on the basics. Our players have had only two seasons of first-class cricket and have yet to face the demands of a match over five days."

Chappell said he could not be precise when asked to rate the strength of the present New Zealand team, although he had been most impressed with the New Zealanders' deeds on the first and second days of the third Test against Australia at Perth.

He mentioned Chris Cairns and Daniel Vettori as world-class bowlers, was impressed by the sudden rise to fame by Lou Vincent, and respected the run-scoring power of Stephen Fleming, Craig McMillan and Nathan Astle.

© CricInfo