SA vs BAN | Mominul Haque makes big claims after Tiger’s crushing defeat at Port Elizabeth

As expected, Bangladesh suffered an embarrassing defeat in the second Test against South Africa at Port Elizabeth on Monday (April 11). Chasing a target of 413 runs, the visitors were bundled out for a paltry total of 80 runs, thereby losing the match by a massive margin of 332 runs. 

This was the second time the Tigers were bowled out for a sub-100 score in the series. But, more importantly, they lost their ten wickets to the Proteas spinners Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer, which suggests a dire need for improvement in their batting against quality spin bowling. 

The Bangladesh captain Mominul Haque seemed utterly disappointed with such a horrendous batting performance and was highly vocal about seeking improvement in that department from his teammates. The southpaw stressed that although they batted brilliantly in the first innings of the first Test in Durban, they couldn’t replicate the same level of success in the rest of the series.

He also mentioned that his batters should have aimed at doing well in one session at a time, which is considered the basic batting strategy in Tests. 

“We batted poorly. After batting well in the first innings at Durban, we couldn’t repeat it again in the test series”, Mominul said. “Batting by session, batting for time, these things went missing. We have to improve a lot. We are not the no. 1 team in the world, but we are still at the same place before the Mount Maunganui win”, the 30-year old cricketer added.

To resolve their batting woes against spin, Mominul asked his colleagues to develop their game through the square of the wicket. The Bangladesh Test skipper also admitted that he and Yasir Ali should have tried to play more along the ground instead of going for the risky expansive shots. 

“We have to improve our square-of-the-wicket shots. Rabbi (Yasir Ali) and I shouldn’t have tried to play those shots over the top. It would have been better had we tried to play it square of the wicket. The better option was to play it along the ground”, Mominul said. 

On being asked whether the pitches suited the Proteas spinners more, the 30-year-old commented that the Bangladeshi spinners are more accustomed to sidespin in home conditions. Hence, they found it challenging to bowl on the South African soil as the pitches were tailormade for overspin.  

“There is a fundamental difference between wickets here and the subcontinent. In our conditions, one can use a sidespin. Here, overspin is useful. Our bowlers are more used to sidespin. One has to go through a lot of technical changes for overspin”, the elegant left-hander concluded.