You can sense Bangladesh coach Dav Whatmore's despair as yet another of his batsmen throws his wicket away with a loose shot after a cameo full of breathtaking strokeplay.

Whatmore breaks off from discussing his role with the team, to gesture in irritation at the Fenner's pitch, where Mohammad Rafique has slashed wildly at a ball from the British Universities' spinner Monty Panesar.

It is a classic Bangladesh dismissal, a wild carve following on from a breathtaking drive to the boundary and Whatmore shakes his head in bewilderment.

"Look at that!" he exclaims. "That's a typical example of the problems I face as coach. He played a beautiful drive. You can see the talent is oozing out of him, then he plays a shot like him. It's a typical example of a Bangladesh player throwing his wicket away. Ninety per cent of our errors out there are mental not technical."

The outburst is classic Whatmore and there's no doubting his heart-on-sleeve commitment to Bangladesh cricket, but he can sound absurdly like a frustrated parent watching a schoolboy team, incapable of calming their jittery nerves and getting them to do the basics right.

"I need to take a very nurturing parental approach at times, but I also sometimes need to be a disciplinarian. In fact, there are so many different roles I have to play as Bangladesh coach that it's different to working with any other Test side.

"I've got to guard against their confidence being knocked around when they're not winning and at the same time I'm trying hard to turn it around and get a win. That makes it even harder to be their coach," he says.

Whatmore is undoubtedly a fine man for the role, especially as, though Aussie-raised and an Australian Test batsman, he was born in Sri Lanka and has a deep affinity with Asian cricket, but it seems a sadly limited brief for one of the world's most imitated and admired coaches.

Here is a man who took Sri Lanka to World Cup glory in 1996 with his innovative batting tactics and won numerous one-day trophies as Lancashire coach in 1997-98, reduced to the headmasterly duties of writing disciplinary notes, or calling his youngsters into his "study" for a private chat.

This is a schoolboy team with a difference though. It is at the centre of a national obsession with cricket in a nation of around 140 million. Dav Whatmore can't leave his house without being assailed by manic fans yelling support, telling him how to run his team, even offering to play, so he mainly stays indoors.

The strident demands of the media are less easy to evade and Whatmore was forced to plead for more patience with the team just before Christmas 2004, after Bangladesh had lost a Test by a massive margin to India.

"I can feel your frustration, yes the whole country's frustration," he had said. "But you've got to forget the result really. What we are trying to do is dig in and tease out the actual reasons why."

Whatmore had been in the job nearly two years at the time and, though there had been big improvements in nutrition, fitness levels and knowledge of the game, Bangladesh had still not achieved a Test win.

The pressure was mounting to produce results and the media were even starting to claim that he was incapable of teaching proper batting technique, something he rebuffed as "absolute rubbish. A very shallow view".

Then, only two weeks after his plea, Bangladesh won a major international match, an ODI against a powerful Indian side, at Dhaka, on December 26, 2004.

Confidence and pride surged through the team, but it was as nothing compared to what happened a couple of weeks later. A miracle occurred at Chittagong, where, after four years, in their 35th match, Bangladesh finally won a Test match. An emotional Whatmore joined his team for celebrations on the pitch, while partying began all over the country.

One could point out, churlishly, that the win was achieved against a Zimbabwe team that had sacked all its best players for political reasons, but its significance was in the self-belief it brought to a side that had previously known only defeat.

Whatmore acknowledges the effect of the win on morale, while offering a word of caution, another one of his many tasks as coach being that of guarding against disappointment, maintaining realistic expectations.

"There is greater confidence now. I can feel it. But whether that translates into wins against better opposition is another matter. It's still not going to be a straight line of improvement," he says.

The wavering fortunes of Bangladesh are likely to be Whatmore's destiny for a while to come. He recently signed a two-year contract and, having failed to bag the Indian coaching role, is likely to see it through.

It will be a bumpy ride, bringing both elation and frustration, but there is the feeling with Whatmore that he is patiently laying the foundations for something big to come in the not too distant future.

23 May, 2005