South Africa makes fluent start, 104-1 vs. Bangladesh

Bangladesh are no longer pushovers, and have reached a point at which they command some respect in the worldwide arena, and South Africa will know better than to take them lightly. Bangladesh showed it still has a way to go before it can compete in the Test format, when it played Pakistan and India after the World Cup. They lost against Pakistan and drew a weather-affected series against India. It certainly makes for an interesting narrative leading into the first Test.

That match was McKenzie’s third for South Africa after a four-year exile from the global arena.

The world’s top test side welcome back pace spearhead Dale Steyn for the series but will be without batting mainstay AB de Villiers, who has been granted paternity leave.

Stiaan van Zyl, the Cobras player who made his Test debut against the West Indies, is the player who was earmarked for the position when Petersen called it a day. Proteas opener S Van Zyl has been dismissed early after a solid opening.

He believes Van Zyl needs to be afforded more playing time at the top of the order.

That assertion comes from former South African batsman Neil McKenzie. With De Villiers out of action, his position, too, needs to be filled. Soumya Sarkar, who was Man of the Series in the ODIs against South Africa, also missed out. In May, Steyn offended the whole country by stating that he would skip South Africa’s Bangladesh tour because he did not want to “waste” any of the deliveries has has remaining in his career, preferring to save his body for “big tournaments”. South African skipper Hashim Amla will hope that South Africa can overcome their ODI loss to emerge triumphant in the Tests. But staying number one means winning in all conditions, despite the myriad of factors that influence Tests. The Test rankings table, unlike the ODI & T20I tables, is updated after the series.

Editorial Note: We are kidding about there being more to life than the game of cricket.

“He [Jubair Hossain] will have a bigger impact in Bangladesh cricket going forward”.

They need to improve on the Test cricket arena.