Bangladesh will face South Africa in the second Test of the two-match National Polymer Test Cricket Series at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium (SBNCS) beginning tomorrow (Thursday).The play will start at 9:30am (Bangladesh time) every day. The Tigers started their practice on Monday at the SBNCS after returning from Chittagong on Sunday ahead of the second and last Test in the month-long full-fledged series involving two T20I, three ODIs and two Tests. On Tuesday, Bangladesh had their practice from 2pm while the Proteas from 10am at the same venue. In their last practice day on Wednesday, Bangladesh will do practice from 10am while South Africa from 2pm. Meanwhile, weather forecast for the next seven days says the monsoon rain might interrupt the second Test like the first one in Chittagong.Mushfiqur Rahim led the ninth ranked Bangladesh to play draw in the first Test of the series against first ranked South Africa in Chittagong which ended on July 25. This was the first-ever draw of Bangladesh against South Africa.The Tigers were carrying their recent historic ODI successes to the current Test series as they restricted the mighty South Africa in the first Test to 248 on the first day and scored 326 runs in their first innings to take a 78-run lead which is their biggest first-innings lead against any team when batting second in a Test match. They batted second in 36 previous Tests and the highest lead achieved by Bangladesh was 68 against Sri Lanka in Galle in 2013.Liton Das made his first Test half century of 50 runs. This made him the youngest wicketkeeper (20 years 281 days) to make a 50-plus score in Tests against South Africa. The previous youngest was Sri Lanka’s Niroshan Dickwella (21 years 31 days) who scored 72 runs against South Africa in Colombo last year.Bangladesh three batsmen made 50-plus score in the same Test innings for the first time against South Africa. Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah and Liton Das scored 57, 67 and 50 respectively in the first innings of this Test.Bangladesh scored 326 runs in the first innings which is the highest against South Africa and first time they scored 300-plus runs against them. The Tigers’ previous highest score against South Africa was 259, also in Chittagong, in 2008.Bangladesh played 116.1 overs in the first innings, their most in a Test innings against South Africa, and the first time they played 100-plus overs against them. The previous highest they had played against South Africa was 87.5 overs in East London in 2002.Bangladesh seven top order batsmen out of eight have posted 25-plus scores for the fourth times in the same Test innings. They achieved the feat in the first innings of this Test previously against West Indies (twice).Meanwhile, Bangladesh Cricket Board July 26 announced a 14-member Bangladesh squad for the second Test keeping an unchanged side that played against the Proteas in the rain-hit first match.
