Bangladesh have been accorded test status by the appropriate regulatory authority. In order to present a valid picture of a player's performance at 'test' level, it is necessary to provide a complete set of statistics
Statistics are used an indicators of a player's success. Of course, the problems inherent in that approach are obvious. We are trying to put something in absolute terms which is extremely subjective.
The definition of a 'good' ball differs from person to person. A ball pitches at middle, seams and beats the bat as well as the off-stump due to the work imparted on it by the bowler. It's a display of a bowler's skill. The next ball pitches outside off, it is a half-volley - the batsman lofts it up in the air, the timing is perfect, the placement isn't and he gets caught out at long-off. The scorebook would show a wicket in the wickets column, however, that wicket is not an indication of the bowler's ability to out-perform the batsman but is born out of an error on the batsman's part.
Therein lies the biggest problem with using statistics as a measure of skill (implicit in questions such as 'who is better'). However, let us assume for a moment that, broadly speaking, bowling skill is directly propotional to wicket-taking ability. This assumption allows us to use the number of wickets (statistics) as a direct measure of a bowler's ability.
The brings me to my next point - cherry-picking of suitable statistics.
Richard believes that Bangladesh's results on the cricketing field do not merit their inclusion among the cricketing playing elite. (Success is being judged by wins/losses) That's a fair opinion, and there is a lot of evidence to support that. However, a lot of posters assume and state, that because the team performance has not been up to the standard expected, the skill displayed by the opposition players against the individual Bangladeshis is also, by default, inferior to that on display against the other test nations. They feel that this warrants an exclusion of these performances from the players portfolio when judging their 'skill'. The oxymoronic nature of this assumption, and indeed the tendency on this board to exclude statistics against presumably 'non-test class' becomes evident when you do a comparison of the skill needed to displace Ashraful's off-stump as opposed to Chris Martin's bails.
Hence, I am afraid but I have to disagree with Richard strongly - a judgement of a player's inherent skill is all about the 'calibre of players' they are up against, amongst other things.*
* - Pitch composition, climatic conditions etc.