Great to see Bangladesh expanding cricket's band of nations

It's great to see the Bangladesh side here in New Zealand. The main reason it's great is that the game at international level is growing.

And that can only be good for the International Cricket Council's plan to aggressively globalise cricket.

Bangladesh has some 130 million people living in the country so it will only be a few years I'm sure until they produce some attacking stroke makers and wily spinners that we see from their neighbours India and Pakistan.

Every nation has to begin somewhere so the results in this early stage of their development are not important, it is the exposure to top level cricket in as many countries that they can play in that should be the focus.

This exposure will make the current crop of players better cricketers who in turn put back effort in the system to make the young players of tomorrow better cricketers.

This Test will be important for us also as personally I need to get more overs under my belt after my long lay-off.

I have read some people saying was I injured in Perth and why didn't I bowl my quota of overs?

I always wanted to bowl but it is Flem's [captain Stephen Fleming] decision who will bowl.

During that Test series my rhythm was not quite there even though I was trying like anything.

During the last Test, Flem chose Shane Bond and Chris Martin to bowl ahead of me because he believed they were the best to do that job at that given time.

This is what a team is all about, and this team is one of the best I have ever been involved in.

It will be great to see Bond get a bag of wickets under his belt this series to get confidence at this level and to see Lou Vincent continue his great start.

The amount of rain that Hamilton has experienced prior to the Test tomorrow has been enormous. This has meant the preparation of the wicket has been delayed so I am not really sure what the pitch will do.

This has been traditionally the best cricket wicket in New Zealand but may be a little slower than normal.

I read somewhere recently that this is the first time in 40 Tests that the CLEAR Black Caps have played back-to-back Tests with the same team.

Now that is amazing!

These situations were brought about mainly through injury and the odd selection change but when I heard that I couldn't believe it.

Any successful sports team or individual strives for consistency so when each time you take the field, to have the same people performing makes things easier for the captain as he can get his patterns sorted out.

Let's hope we can string a few more together!