Bangladesh toured South Africa in 2021/22 for two Test matches and lost the series 0-2. Telford Vice’s report appeared in the 2023 edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.

Bangladesh had played 28 official internationals in South Africa, and won only one – against West Indies in the first World Twenty20 in September 2007. And yet they confounded their hosts by winning two of the three ODIs, with seamer Taskin Ahmed the trump card. South Africa did win both Tests, although again the script was unexpected: despite pitches expected to favour the seamers, the success was mainly down to the slow men, Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer, who shared 29 of the 40 wickets, and bowled unchanged in both second innings. Even so, Mahmudul Hasan scored the tour’s solitary century in the Tests, where only Maharaj and Taijul Islam claimed five-wicket hauls.

The focus before the Bangladeshis arrived was as much on people who might not be part of the narrative: would Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi, Aiden Markram and Rassie van der Dussen choose to play in the Tests rather than miss the start of the IPL? And would Shakib Al Hasan be around for either of the Tests, with several of his family hospitalised by Covid? The answer to both questions was no.

Speaking before he knew the answer, South Africa’s Test captain Dean Elgar said: “You don’t want players to miss out on a big occasion like the IPL, but I’d still like to think playing for your country is bigger than that.” After the Tests, which proved South Africa could win without a bevy of bruising quicks, his tune changed: “I don’t know if those guys are going to be selected again – that’s out of my hands.”

First the teams had to negotiate a 50-over series that, considering the high-veld venues where all three matches were staged, seemed designed to improve South Africa’s position in the World Cup Super League. Bangladesh, though, upset the apple cart in the first game, before South Africa struck back in style at the Wanderers, where Rabada produced a fine performance on a responsive pitch. But Taskin matched that at Centurion three days later to help his team to a 2-1 win.

The start of the Test series was delayed over half an hour by a malfunctioning Kingsmead sightscreen. Bizarrely, the Bangladeshis claimed this was part of a mountain of evidence of bias by the umpires, who – the visitors alleged – had denied their bowlers the advantage of using early moisture in the pitch. Make that a molehill. It’s true that Marais Erasmus and Adrian Holdstock were not at their best: eight of their decisions in the first Test were overturned. But four calls went in South Africa’s favour and four against – an open-and-shut case for objectivity. Of three other not-out decisions that, the gizmos said, would have been changed had they been sent upstairs, two denied wickets for Bangladesh. If the captains didn’t think their players’ appeals were worthy of being referred, why should the umpires be held responsible?

Elgar dismissed the complaints, saying Test cricket was “a man’s environment”. That wasn’t his only slip: between the Tests, he fell over in the shower and gashed his forehead. Most of the rest, however, he got right.

Bangladesh touring party: *Mominul Haque (T), Abu Jayed (T), Afif Hossain (50), Ebadat Hossain (T), Khaled Ahmed (T/50), Litton Das (T/50), Mahmudul Hasan (T), Mahmudullah (50), Mehedi Hasan (T/50), Mohammad Naim (50), Munim Shahriar (50), Mushfiqur Rahim (T/50), Mustafizur Rahman (50), Nasum Ahmed (50), Nazmul Hossain (T/50), Nurul Hasan (T), Shadman Islam (T), Shahidul Islam (T/50), Shakib Al Hasan (T/50), Shoriful Islam (T/50), Taijul Islam (T), Tamim Iqbal (T/50), Taskin Ahmed (T/50), Yasir Ali (T/50). Coach: RC Domingo.
Tamim Iqbal captained in the ODIs. Shakib Al Hasan was persuaded to stay on for the Tests, having originally requested a break, but did not play after several family members contracted Covid. Shoriful Islam and Taskin Ahmed returned home injured after the first Test.

First Test at Durban, March 31-April 4, 2022: South Africa won by 220 runs

South Africa 12pts. Toss: Bangladesh. Test debuts: RD Rickelton, LB Williams.

Durban was not a happy place. In July 2021, the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma, for corruption, sparked nine days of rioting and looting. Seven days after this match, a foot of rain fell inside 24 hours. A week later, over 400 were confirmed killed by the flood, 40 missing, and more than 4,000 homes destroyed, displacing some 40,000 people. To talk of cricket in these circumstances seemed flippant, but the scars of the previous year’s unrest remained visible not far from Kingsmead, and the sight of an inner-city lake on the spot where South Africa had won just days earlier brought home the scale of the latest devastation.

That success started with Mominul Haque disregarding coach Russell Domingo’s advice to bat first, and Bangladesh paid the price. South Africa’s total was just the second time in nine Tests they had passed 300 batting first, and the only instance in five matches at home.

Maharaj, a local man, said before the match he had “never seen the colour of the grass at Kingsmead like it is right now”, prompting hopes of a departure from the lifeless pitches the ground had tended to deliver in the post-isolation era. The surface sported a thicker, greener covering than usual, curiously, much of it in a 2ft strip down the middle. But, as it turned out, it did not offer undue assistance to the seamers. The South Africans, who had lost the opening Test seven times in their previous 11 series, were able to settle in relatively untroubled. But, after a wicketless first morning, they were dismissed on the second afternoon for 367, around 100 short of expectations. Elgar and Erwee had shared an opening stand of 113, while Bavuma – in his 50th Test – fell seven runs short of what would have been his second hundred when he was bowled trying to cut a sharply turning delivery from Mehedi Hasan.

By stumps, South Africa had removed four of Bangladesh’s top five for 98, all winkled out by Harmer, the off-spinner in his first Test since November 2015, after starring as a Kolpak player with Essex. The exception among the visitors’ batsmen was the 21-year-old Mahmudul Hasan, who shared three half-century partnerships before he was last out after tea on the third day, having scored the series’ only century – Bangladesh’s first in a Test against South Africa (the previous best was 77, by Mominul at Potchefstroom in September 2017). It was a composed performance from a player in only his fourth Test innings; he certainly lived up to his nickname, “Joy”.

A listless South African second innings ended midway through the third session on the fourth day, and by the close Bangladesh were three down with 263 still required. With the pitch taking spin, a home win seemed probable – but few imagined that no more than 55 minutes of the last day’s play would be needed to wrap up victory. Bangladesh lost seven wickets for 42 in 13 overs, to crash to their second-lowest Test total (they made 43 against West Indies in Antigua in July 2018); their 53 was the lowest Test total at Kingsmead, undercutting India’s 66 in 1996/97. For the first time in their 451 Tests, two South Africans bowled unchanged through a completed innings. It was also the first time two spinners had taken all ten for them since Hugh Tayfield and Tufty Mann against Australia in January 1950, again at Durban.

Player of the Match: Keshav Maharaj.

Second Test at Gqeberha, April 8-11, 2022: South Africa won by 332 runs

South Africa 12pts. Toss: South Africa. Debut: K Zondo.

Locals say that if the wind blows from behind the main scoreboard – the Indian Ocean is two miles east – you should field, because there will be swing and seam. If the wind whistles through the gap between the Grandstand and the Duckpond Pavilion away to the west, drying the pitch, then bat. What if there’s no wind? Well, this is Gqeberha (which until February 2021 was called Port Elizabeth). There is always wind.

Denizens of St George’s Park, South Africa’s first cricket and rugby Test ground, know this like they know their own names. Bangladesh’s head coach Russell Domingo is a native of these parts and a former franchise coach here. But he was absent, after testing positive for Covid. Mominul Haque was not given the chance to get it wrong again, as he had at Kingsmead, because Elgar won the toss.

A decent westerly was blowing, so Elgar batted. And his side carried on deep into the second afternoon to reach 450 for only the second time in 27 Tests. Nine players passed 20, but no one got to three figures. A brisk half-century by Elgar and two more – sedate by comparison – from Petersen and Bavuma set South Africa up for big things. Even so, it needed Maharaj’s urgency to push them past 400. Invariably  ambitious if variably effective in the past, Maharaj middled much of his frenetic 95-ball 84, a Test-best. “I think about scoring a Test century every time I go out to bat,” he said. The best weapon Bangladesh had was slow left-armer Taijul Islam, who completed his tenth five-for when Maharaj heaved across the line and lost his leg stump.

Bangladesh shambled to the second-day close five down and 314 behind; Mulder, who had not been given the ball until the 108th over in Durban, now took 3-5 in his first 30 deliveries. Ominously for the tourists, the wind had switched to the east, and was still blowing that way when they were all out in the fifth over after lunch next day, still 236 adrift. But they were not told to pad up. Instead, South Africa batted until more than an hour after tea to whisk their lead past 400. And in the 55 deliveries they faced before stumps, Bangladesh lost their top three to Maharaj and Harmer.

As at Kingsmead, the South Africans went into a day’s play requiring seven wickets to win. This time, they also had an extra day at their disposal. They didn’t have their bowling coach, Charl Langeveldt, who had also gone down with Covid. Mulder had tested positive, too, as had Erwee, making Glenton Stuurman and Khaya Zondo international cricket’s first Covid substitutes; Zondo did not bat or bowl on what counted as his Test debut, and fielded for less than an hour.

With the Bangladeshis attempting ever more outrageous strokes, it took the spin twins 59 minutes – four more than in the first Test – to clean up. While Harmer attacked with good old turn and bounce, Maharaj wheeled away with intensity, becoming the first bowler to take seven wickets in the fourth innings of consecutive Tests. His last victim, Khaled Ahmed, was his 150th. “After not picking up wickets in the first innings at Durban,” said Maharaj, “the captain and coach told me: ‘You’re doing the right things. Your time will come.’ I haven’t looked back since.”

Player of the Match: Keshav Maharaj.
Player of the Series: Keshav Maharaj.

Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.