South Africa v Bangladesh 1st T20I, 2017: Who Said What

Ever since the start of Bangladesh’s tour of South Africa, there is only one team which has been playing their best cricket. After the whitewash in the Test and ODI series, Bangladesh were left in tatters as they looked helpless against the might of the Proteas. After a horrendous tour thus far, Shakib Al Hasan’s men were all set to take on the Proteas in the 1st T20 International at Bloemfontein. Jean-Paul Duminy, the Proteas skipper, won the toss and elected to bat first on what seemed like a belter of a wicket.

They lost Hashim Amla to Mehidy Hasan Miraz, but that hardly stopped the South African batsmen from playing aggressively. AB de Villiers and Quinton de Kock were pretty severe on the Bangladesh bowlers as the duo stitched together a stand of 77 runs in 48 balls. Bangladeshi bowlers never looked like getting the better of South Africa’s batting as they kept disappearing round the park. Farhan Behardien’s whirlwind cameo of 36 from 17 balls propelled the score to a mammoth 195/4 in 20 overs. Mehidy was the pick of their bowlers with figures of 4-0-31-2.

During the run-chase, the Bangladeshi batsmen didn’t die wondering and went after the Proteas attack from the word go. The opening stand of 43 in 23 balls between Imrul Kayes and Soumya Sarkar set the tone for the daunting task of overhauling South Africa’s score. But somehow, they managed to lose wickets at regular intervals.

Consequently, the required run-rate leapfrogged at an alarming rate. Though they were able to find the boundaries on a consistent basis, the required rate hardly dropped. Mohammed Saifuddin manufactured some lusty blows to keep Bangladesh in the game, but couldn’t take his team over the finishing line as they fell short by 20 runs. Here’s what the skippers had to say after the game.

AB de Villiers the Man of the Match said:

I learnt a lot from Jonty (Rhodes) when I was growing up. I was disappointed to get out, would have loved to get 70-plus. I was watching closely the kind of shots that were working. There was bit of pace and bounce. The Bangladeshi players were feeling the pressure. We did not have to try too much, just time the ball. I really enjoy this format. You can capitalize in the first six overs.

Proteas skipper JP Duminy said:

I thought it was a good score. They bowled pretty well in the death overs, got their yorkers right. We kind of knew that they were going to come at us during the first six overs. You got to try and think on your feet. Very happy with the new guys, they were spot on. There is always room for improvement. We have said this before that we want it to be 2-0 at the end of the series.

Bangladesh’s stand-in skipper Shakib Al Hasan said:

They batted really well. Last five overs cost us the match. Overall, we gave 15-20 runs more. We had a great start but we did not capitalize. Spinners bowled really well. We bowled in good areas. First 10 overs, we were there but we could not continue. There are some areas where we can improve. We need to apply ourselves to play less dot balls. Guys batting in middle overs need to do it regularly.