First Twenty20: South Africa beats Bangladesh in by 52 runs

Mirpur (Bangladesh), July 8 (IANS): Bangladesh’s limited overs captain Mashrafe bin Mortaza has no clue why his batsmen are failing to blunt the threat posed by South Africa’s spin attack. So this game will decide the fate of the series.

Bangladesh have been a dominant force at home this season.

“We thought that we had a good chance of winning today, especially when the ball started turning in the second innings”. Mashrafe Mortaza chose to play four spinners and rightly so.

Du Plessis helped the visitors recover from a shaky start with an unbeaten 79 off 61 balls, his sixth half-century in Twenty20 internationals, which included eight fours.

Tamim Iqbal (5) gloved an attempted pull and was caught behind off Kyle Abbott while Soumya Sarkar (7) pulled a Kagiso Rabada bouncer straight to JP Duminy at deep square leg.

In Bangladesh, South Africa learned lessons they can apply as they work towards India – both for the tour later in the year and the big tournament next March.

For Bangladesh, Tamim and Soumya’s failure at the top will be a worry. “But we are not going to celebrate too much knowing that tomorrow will be a lot more hard”.

The only change expected in Bangladesh squad for Tuesday’s game could be the replacement of spinner Sohag Gazi, who was wicketless in the series-opener, with leg-spinner Jubair Hossain. Only one over in the Power Play was bowled by a pacer and South Africa was struggling for momentum at 37 for 2.

South Africa still needed a strong finish and it got that when Rilee Rossouw joined his skipper in the 14th over. JP Duminy, as usual, gave South Africa with the necessary breakthroughs.

“In the second innings (of the first match) the wicket did deteriorate”. Bangladesh need to come out with a better plan, if they want to level the series and walk into the ODI series on a high note.

Sarkar fell in the next over, stumped by De Kock to give Leie his first wicket in worldwide cricket and, after Shakib fell to Aaron Phangiso, Bangladesh were in real trouble when they lost Sabbir Rahman and Mushfiqur Rahim (19) to successive Leie deliveries to slump to 82 for five.

After Faf du Plessis won the toss and elected to bat first, his side suffered an early loss as opener A B de Villiers got out at his personal score of 2 in the first over.