Charged up post their historic ODI series win against South Africa on the latter’s home soil, Bangladesh aim to continue their winning streak in Tests too.
“When you come to play a full series and win the first one, you are one step ahead in terms of confidence,” Bangladesh Test captain Mominul Haque said ahead of their first Test against South Africa on Thursday.
“Though the red-ball cricket is slightly different from the white-ball cricket, we have to start over, but we are confident,” he told reporters.
Bangladesh and South Africa are all set to take on each other in the first of the two-match Test series at Kingsmead, Durban, later in the day.
Ahead of this series, Bangladesh won the three-match ODI series against the hosts 2-1. The Tigers won both the matches in Centurion riding on an outstanding team-effort.
Bangladesh played a total of 12 Tests against the Proteas and failed to win any of them. Bangladesh only have two draws which came with the help of rains.
And six among these Tests were played in South Africa and Bangladesh lost all of them. This history is not going to help the Tigers in any way.
“We have to work on the things that went wrong against New Zealand earlier this year,” Mominul said. “We have to follow the process that helped us gain success against the Blackcaps in the Test we’ve won.”
While Bangladesh are full of confidence ahead of the Test series, South Africa are undermanned with some of their key players leaving the team due to their commitment with their respective Indian Premier League teams.
Mominul said that it would keep them ahead of the hosts, but “the hosts will also get some advantage as they are playing in their own land and in front of their own people”.
The Bangladesh captain also said the performance of the pace bowlers is important for his team to win a Test in South Africa. “Some of our pacers have done really well in the ODI series. It’s important for our pacers to do well if we want to win a Test here.”
Taskin Ahmed, the right-arm pacer, was the player of the series in ODIs. He is expected to do well in the Test series too. To play in this series, Taskin turned down an offer to play in the Indian Premier League.
Bangladesh are going to miss the service of Shakib Al Hasan in the first match of the two-match Test series. The allrounder is currently in Bangladesh staying with his family. He had to return home after the ODI series as a few members of his family were in the hospital with different illnesses.
He, however, is expected to join the Bangladesh team ahead of the second Test which will be played in St George’s Park, Port Elizabeth, from April 8.
