Six-over storm ruins Bangladesh’s day

The final six overs of the fourth day ruined an otherwise great day for Bangladesh as they are already three wickets down with just 11 runs on the board in pursuit of a 274-run target to win the first Test against South Africa at the Kingsmead Stadium in Durban.

Bangladesh lost the wickets of last innings’ centurion Mahmudul Hasan Joy, his opening partner Shadman Islam and skipper Mominul Haque and find themselves 263 runs away from the finish line with three sessions to go.

South Africa only used their spinners in the dying lights of the fourth day. Keshav Maharaj took a couple of wickets while Simon Harmer took one wicket to give Proteas the edge heading into the final day.

Just an over after Bangladesh lost three wickets, the umpires brought out the light meter and stopped play for poor light.

The disaster started from the second over when Shadman departed for a duck after edging a delivery from Harmer straight to Keegan Peterson at slip.

In the fifth over the situation worsened for Bangladesh when Maharaj snuck a ball between the bat and pad of Joy and rattled his stumps.

Just three balls later, skipper Mominul inexplicably left an incoming delivery alone that hit his pads and the umpire had no hesitation to raise his index finger.

Before the catastrophe with the bat, the bowlers had dragged Bangladesh well and truly into the contest by bowling out South Africa for 204.

Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Ebadot Hossain took three wickets each while Taskin Ahmed took two wickets to bundle out South Africa in 74 overs.

Skipper Dean Elgar was South Africa’s top-scorer with 64 runs while Ryan Rickelton remained unbeaten on 39.

South Africa went into Tea break on 157-5, leading by 226 runs. But they lost their remaining five wickets for 47 runs in the post-Tea session.

Miraz took the first wicket of the session, by removing Wiaan Mulder for 11 and in the following over, Ebadot dismissed Keshav Maharaj for five.

Ryan frustrated Bangladesh with a few boundaries, but two run-outs and an LBW from Ebadot meant that South Africa could not push the target to 300.

Earlier, South Africa were sitting comfortably on 105-1 at Lunch after resuming the day’s play on 6-0.

But Bangladesh bounced back with four wickets after lunch.

Taskin removed Protea captain Elgar followed a couple of strikes from Miraz and a wicket from Ebadot.