Sports desk: There was hope that Bangladesh would come up with definite plan to at least keep South Africa restrained on a placid pitch after the horror show on day one following the toss blunder. But the determination was nowhere seen amongst the bowlers who were erratic in the large part of the second day. There was glimpse of hope though when three pacers—Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed and Shafiul Islam bowled well with their limited resources but they were not simply consistent throughout the day. On most of the occasion, they delivered four or five balls in good areas before ruining the effort with half-volley delivery and that helped South African batsmen ticking the scoreboard with ease.
Only specialist spinner Mehedi Hasan Miraj operated tirelessly with no luck even though some cracks here and there in the pitch started appearing. Some balls were kept low and some gained extra bounce to the hope of Mehedi but credit to the South African batsmen that they were solid.
Only some mistakes could provide a wicket for Bangladesh. Hashim Amla and Dean Elgar made the mistakes to gift their wicket actually. After toiling 117.2 overs, Bangladesh bowlers finally showed a wicket beside their name through Shafiul Islam whose short ball stuffs worked nicely and gave him a wicket. Amla reached his century off 143 balls and destined to a big one given there was no assistance for the bowlers. However he flashed at the short ball of Shafiul in the air and holed it out to backward point, ending his knock of 137 off 200 that included 17 fours and one six. This was however the 70000 wickets in Test cricket.
Watching Shafiul gain the success with shorts balls, Bangladeshi pacers employed it and consistently threw a barrage of short balls but the only problem was they couldn’t generate enough pace which could bother the batsmen. However still it worked due to the mistake of Dean Elgar who was unmindful of his intention, standing on his maiden double century. Mustafizur gave him a bouncer in the first ball to which he ducked and the second one is another bouncer like the first one but Elgar on 199, was between pulling and leaving it which finally resulted a simple catch at mid-wicket. After showing enormous patience and good technique throughout five session, his 388 balls knock finally came to an end for this one simple mistake. Elgar hit 15 fours and three sixes in his 199.
After getting Elgar, Mustafizur once again delivered a half-volley to help South African skipper Faf Du Plessis open his account with a boundary. This was the scenario of whole day actually that they followed a good delivery with a bad ball.
Given his reputation, Mustafizur was simply disappointing. He showed a good performance in a spin-friendly pitch in Chittagong against Australia but that raised the hope that he still has the ability to baffle the batsman in any condition. Though the pitch had nothing to assist the bowlers in Potchefstroom, Mustafizur still needs something to prove as to why he is regarded so highly. But what was feared that he would no longer be a mystery bowler like Ajantha Mendis as soon as the opponents decode him, that fear came into the fore again.
The plan was there definitely but to be honest, Bangladesh bowlers were not skillful enough to execute it. The bowlers shortcomings again raised the questions whether the own designed home wicket made an adverse impact on them.
