Fatullah, April 8:

Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar says his team will not be overawed when it meets top-ranked Australia in Sunday’s first Test. “We have great respect, but not fear,” Bashar said on the eve of the first Test at Fatullah, near the capital, Dhaka. “We are focussing on giving our best performance as a team.”

This is Australia’s first tour of Bangladesh. The only previous Test series between the two teams was at Australia in 2003 — when the hosts won both matches by an innings.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting said Bangladesh was “improving gradually” and his team was looking forward to a better standard of play in the current two-Test series.

On Friday Ponting retracted his previous comments that Bangladesh did not deserve Test status. “We are here to play good cricket and that’s what we will do,” Ponting told reporters.

“It will be a new challenge to play in different conditions here, and to see where Bangladesh has come since 2003,” he said.

The two sides last met in a triangular limited-overs series last year, when Bangladesh upset Australia with a five-wicket win at Cardiff, Wales.

After a practice session on Friday, Ponting commented that Fatullah’s “bare pitch with a good turn for spinners” was likely to favour the home side, but Australia had lots of flexibility among its bowlers. “We have good quality spinner and leg-spinners, lots of fast bowlers and all-rounders,” Ponting said.

Bashar, however, doubted whether Fatullah’s slow wicket would yield much turn, saying Bangladesh would use two pacers — Mashrafee Bin Mortaza and Shahadat Hossain — to complement spinners Mohammad Rafique and Enamul Haque. Bang-ladesh included fast bowler Mortaza, batsman Rajin Saleh and allrounder Aftab Ahmed in its starting lineup — leaving out Syed Rasel, Nafis Iqbal and Alok Kapali.

Australia was yet to announce a final XI. Australian selectors earlier recalled fast bowler Jason Gillespie along with Phil Jaques, and inducted Mitchell Johnson from the one-day squad, to replace injured trio Justin Langer, Shaun Tait and Michael Kasprowicz. The second Test begins on April 16 in Chittagong. It will be followed by a one-day international series between April 23-28.