It was the perennial handicap -- batting -- that let the home team down for the umpteenth time but chief selector Faruque Ahmed was unwilling to come down hard on the batters.

"We batted poorly in the first innings. But I won't blame them for the second innings debacle because it was difficult as the ball was turning and there was bounce also," said Faruque.

"If we consider the condition of the pitch, I must say that Nafees (Iqbal) and (Mohammad) Ashraful played exceptionally well," Faruque added.

Whatmore was his usual philosophical self.

"This is a disappointing finish. I just felt that the first innings failure was the start of the demise. I thought this wicket showed much more spin today compared to the last three days and the New Zealand spinners made brilliant use of the conditions," said Whatmore who believed the match was lost after Bangladesh had made just 177 in their first innings having batted first.

"When you make a score which is probably half of what it should be on a wicket like this, it is difficult to keep fighting your way back into the game. It was difficult to come back on the fourth day with the deficit of over two hundred runs and two days to go especially after losing those two wickets yesterday."

Whatmore said it was not fair to be critical of specialist batting coach Owen Mottau for the non-performance of the batsmen.

"Technique takes time and we've seen evidence of some of the work that's being done coming through.

"I think the batsmen showed good technique against the pacers although they lost some wickets against them in the first innings. But we need to have a good thought about how we are going to come back against spin."

The coach picked out the bowling effort as one of the positives from this Test.

"There have been some encouraging signs. They bowled out their opponents in one innings on a really good batting surface. I saw some committed effort from the boys in the match."

Stand-in captain Khaled Mashud said that it could have been a different story had they managed at least 300 in the first essay.

"We had a very poor total in the first innings. I think we made another mistake in the second innings by becoming ultra-defensive against their spinners. It would have been better if we were more aggressive," said the 28-year old.

New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming branded the win as a special one.

"This was our first win in over six years in the sub-continent. So, it was special," said the 31-year old Kiwi captain.

The left-hander said that Bangladesh had wasted an opportunity to put more pressure on the tourists on the first day.

"They had a chance to take control after winning the toss in familiar conditions and one partnership did put some pressure on us on the first day. But from then on it was pretty much under our control," said Fleming.

"There were obviously times during the Test when we were under pressure. I think Bangladesh came back well through their spinners but they didn't get the partnerships they needed from the top order to get a big score.

Fleming was expecting a clean Sweep but said they needed to polish certain areas.

"I am confident of winning the series but there are still some rooms for improvement. But the way we performed on most fronts, it was really encouraging. The confidence in this game was gained by the way Brendon McCullum played the spinners," he said.

Left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori, who was the wrecker-in-chief in the Bangladesh second innings by claiming six wickets for 28, said that the Tigers needed more patience.

"I don't think the Bangladeshi batsmen have too many technical faults but they have to be patient. They went for rash shots whenever we prevented them from scoring," he observed.

The 25-year old spinner did not agree that the pitch was unplayable.

"The wicket was quite slow and we got some bounce that helped me a lot. It was good for spinners but not the best. Patience is key to surviving on such wickets," said Vettori.