Proteas steady ship after a batting lesson in Chittagong

24 July 2015 - 09:34 By TELFORD VICE

Shakib Al Hasan and Liton Das delivered a masterclass in Chittagong yesterday and, to their credit, South Africa's batsmen got off their No1 pedestal and learnt from the Bangladeshis. But whether the visitors have righted their ship well enough to push for victory on the last two days of a match that could yet be decided by rain remains unclear.At stumps yesterday SA were 61-0, a deficit of 17. That was after ending Bangladesh's first innings at 326 - the home side's highest total in their nine Tests against SA and the only time they have reached 300 against them.Shakib and Liton took on the bowling with everything at their disposal - aggression and creativity - and put on 82 runs in the most watchable 29.1 overs of the match.The 78-run lead Bangladesh took into the second innings marked the first time they have cracked a first-innings nod over SA and was their biggest lead in any Test batting second.It took SA 49.1 overs and cost them 147 runs to earn the six remaining wickets they needed to get back to the batting crease. Eighty-two of those runs flew off the bats of Shakib and Liton.On Tuesday, SA - besides the enterprising Temba Bavuma - frittered away the advantage of batting first by neither using their feet nor rotating the strike well enough to prevent the bowlers from gaining a stranglehold.The exciting left-arm paceman Mustafizur Rahman and Shakib's experience aside, Bangladesh's attack is weak. They are not fast. They do not turn the ball sharply. They are not swing merchants. But they are able to hit the spot consistently...

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