Hope
F Waliullah

Bangladesh have played South Africa in only 4 times in which times, Bangladesh lost to South Africa in big margins of 168 runs, 10 wickets (twice) and 7 wickets. Bangladesh's lowest score against South Africa is 108 all out in the world cup match and Bangladesh's average scores in the maiden tour of South Africa was in the 150s in the One Day game. Among these 4 times, only once Bangladesh could manage to play the full 50 overs. All the four matches were also held in South Africa - in South Africa's home conditions. Considering these facts, it would have been safe to say that angladesh would be able to perform much better than the last four occassions, since this time Bangladesh will play against South Africa at home on turning tracks in front of home crowd.

But nobody can say that now as Bangladesh hit their second lowest total of 77 all out in just the last match against India. And also South Africa has played their first match against India already and if they rectify their mistakes that had made against South Africa and choose 2 spinners - Paul Adams and Peterson, then Bangladesh's chances for playing the full 50 overs or to score a total of 200 runs goes to the drains. Bangladesh could not even manage to play Peterson in South Africa, so there is just no way that Bangladesh can play him or Adams or both of them on the turning tracks of Dhaka stadium.

The only hope for Bangladesh to do well is that the South Africa captain make the same mistakes and Pollock not bowl in the opening overs. Even then, Bangladesh openers and middle order batsman have to play better than they usually do to play the 50 overs and hope to score around 180 to 200 runs.

If by any chance, that happens, then Bangladesh will not be able to restrict the South African batsman to a respectable margin since South African openers Harchelle Gibbs and Graem Smith are much better batsman than Indian opener Gautam Gambhir. Smith scored his highest test score of a double century against Bangladesh.

The highest batting average of a Bangladeshi batsman agains South Africa is Khaled Mashud (33.66). He is also the leading run scorer for Bangladesh against South Africa with the only batsman to have scored more than a hundred runs in 4 One Day Internationals. Although Habibul Bashar has played better against South Africa with an average of 51 but that is because Habibul Bashar has played only in 1 match against South Africa and in that match he scored a fifty (51 runs). Tapash Baisya has the second highest batting average of 30.00, but since then Tapash Baisya has emerged as more of a bowler than an all rounder. Khaled Mahmud has the third highest batting average against South Africa (20.00) along with the second leading run scorer for Bangladesha against South Africa. Even Alok Kapali has a batting average of just 11.75 against South Africa. Javed Omar, Sanwar Hossain's batting average is also 11. Tushar Imran's batting average is over 8 and Hannan Sarkar's batting average is over 4.

Talha Jubair is the leading wicket taker for Bangladesh followed by Tapash Baisya. Khaled Mahmud is the only other bowler to have taken a wicket against South Africa. But this time, as the pitches will be turning in Bangladesh, so it is clear that spinners will be predominantly wicket takers for Bangladesh.

The two highest partnerships for Bangladesh of more than 50 runs is 68 run 3rd wicket partnership between Habibul Bashar and Sanwar Hossain and 8th wicket partnership of 60 runs, a record for Bangladesh at the time, between Khaled Mashud and Tapash Baisya. The other big partnerships are in the 20s and 30s.

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