Those men with vested interests who so generously gifted Bangladesh Test status have a lot to answer for. If murdering Test cricket was a crime, they might all be hauled up into the witness box. Today's shameful capitulation in Dhaka was the latest in Bangladesh cricket's Chamber of Horrors, a grisly collection that would have scared the most hardened guillotine executioner. Even up to a year ago, they had their apologists. Give them time, they said, things will get better. Well, we're sorry to report that it only keeps getting worse. And please spare us the drivel comparing this dire team to Sri Lanka in their Test infancy. True, they got their fair share of thrashings but that team had some genuinely world-class players. Anyone that watched Roy Dias or Duleep Mendis at their peak would never testify otherwise. And decades before that, they had Mahadevan Sadasivam. Every living soul that watched him play rates him alongside the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Javed Miandad in the list of the finest batsmen Asia has produced.

Even Zimbabwe, at the time of their debut in 1992, had the Flower brothers and Dave Houghton. The premier Flower, Andy, would have been a great in any era. More importantly, both Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe had decent first-class infrastructure in place years before they dipped their feet in Test shallows. As for Bangladesh, until three years ago, all they played was league cricket of the one-day biff-bang-wallop variety. Take this team. Is there anyone barring perhaps Mohammad Ashraful and Alok Kapali who would even make it past club grade in your hometown? Answers on a postcard.

The biggest tragedy lies in the devaluation of Test runs and wickets. There was a time when taking six Test wickets was a once-in-a-lifetime achievement, possible only for the all-time greats. Jermaine Lawson, however, picked up 6 for 3 in under an hour of pace bowling at its most rudimentary, against completely clueless batsmen. Years from now, someone might look at those figures and make a comparison with Curtly Ambrose's 7 for 1 at Perth. Sacrilege punishable by death, we know, but for some, the record books are gospel.

And what of Ramnaresh Sarwan? When he's old and grey and tapping his cane on the parquet - grandson perched on dodgy knee – will he dare breathe a word about this first Test hundred? What if Junior turns round and says, "So what, gramps? I made 200 in the back garden today, playing against sis (4 year old)"? There was a time when such runmaking could be referred to as filling your boots, with an oblique reference to the miners from the days of the gold rush. But against Bangladesh, you'd be filling your boots with nothing but dross. Gold? You cannot be John McEnroe-serious.

Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe came up the hard way, playing unofficial Tests and then one-off matches before being rewarded with even a three-Test series. And in those days, there was nothing like an ICC Test Championship to make a mockery of the game. Apparently, South Africa – who were pulped 5-1, home and away by the world's best team less than a year ago – will soon ascend to the number one spot in the ICC Table, helped partly by a series victory at home against mighty Bangladesh. If people can be institutionalised for believing that they're the Pope, or Michael Jackson, so should anyone who reckons Australia are not the best team in the world.

And it beggars belief that South Africa's farcical ascension to the throne is official, that such an inherently flawed system has survived more than a few months. When one of the greatest teams in the history of the game is racking up one Test win after another, often within three days, it's a disgrace that another team - especially one not fit to clean their flannels – is within exhaust-smelling distance of them. Any table that rewards victories over Bangladesh and Australia equally, and where individual Test results count for nothing, has long passed its sell-by date. Why don't the powers-that-be just come out and say, "Oh, go ahead, rig all the dead rubbers, make some money on the side…they count for naught anyway"?

As Steve Waugh's remarkable side have shown us, every Test match means something. To borrow from a Nicole Kidman movie, it's to die for. Why punish excellence instead of rewarding it? Much has been written and said about the passion for the game in Bangladesh. But what use passion without talent? There are several pockets in India where the people are extremely passionate about football. Yet, you don't see FIFA lining up competitive matches between India and Brazil/France/Spain, do you? And that's the way it should be. Until some Dias-Mendis-Flower-like talent surfaces in Bangladesh, let them play A teams or U-19 sides. Even those matches are beyond them right now. The most decent thing to do now would be to allow Bangladesh to carry on being the sport's whipping boys, while making sure that the results against them don't count towards this Test championship.

Modern-day sport has taken much from the Roman amphitheatres, where gladiators battled each other to an often-gruesome end. But watching Bangladesh play Tests is more like watching those very same gladiators thrown to the lions, with no sword or shield to save them. It's painful viewing and most of us have had enough.

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