Bangladesh's inexperienced bowling attack picked up four South African wickets on day one of the first Test in Durban on Thursday. Picture: Darren Stewart/Gallo Images
Coming after their impressive ODI series win over South Africa, the opening day of the Test series was a tough one for Bangladesh as they probably made the wrong decision at the toss by sending the Proteas in to bat and then bowled poorly in the morning session to compound the mistake.
Openers Dean Elgar (67) and Sarel Erwee (41) added 113 for the first wicket, before Bangladesh fought back in the afternoon to reduce the hosts to 180/4. But Temba Bavuma (53*) and Kyle Verreynne (27*) then made sure it was South Africa’s day at Kingsmead as they added an unbeaten 53 to take the Proteas to 233/4 at stumps.
Bangladesh coach Russell Domingo admitted a lack of confidence in batting first and an inexperienced attack was the cause of their woes. Pacemen Taskin Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain and Khaled Ahmed only have 25 Test caps between them.
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“We’re still trying to improve our Test cricket and there is still a bit of uncertainty over our batting on pitches with pace and bounce, that was behind the decision to bowl first,” Domingo revealed on Thursday evening.
“We’re trying to address the confidence of the batsmen so they are able to front up when batting first on wickets that are tough. There was not too much in the decision and it would have been nice to actually start at 10am because the delay meant the clouds had burned off.
“A few of the batsmen are playing their first Test here and we’re trying to get them to have confidence in their ability, but there’s still a long way to go.
“We also have a very inexperienced attack and we bowled poorly in the first session. Obviously the guys were a bit nervous or over-eager, on a pitch they thought would assist them. But we were much better after lunch,” Domingo said.
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The Bangladesh attack did clearly miss left-arm quick Shoriful Islam, one of the stars of the ODI series.
“Shoriful is injured, he has an ankle niggle which is why he missed selection, and is back is troubling him too,” Domingo revealed. “With only four bowlers, we could not risk one who was 50/50.
“The pitch has not done as much as we thought it would, but Khaled ran in hard, he bowled one ball at 150km/h and his attitude was fantastic. He showed good pace and control.
“We kept it nice and tight in the last session and the new ball is just four overs away. Obviously it will be fantastic if we can get one or two early wickets with it.
“If we can keep the Proteas to around 320 then we’re very much in the contest,” Domingo, a former South Africa coach, said.