Tigers turn fear into reality

When Bangladesh finished Day 2 of their second and series-deciding Test against South Africa in Chattogram at 38 for four in their first innings on Wednesday, doubts seeped in whether the Tigers would be able to survive the entire third day with their remaining 16 wickets in both innings.

That fear turned into reality yesterday as Bangladesh were bundled out for 159 in their first innings, and for 143 in the second after being asked to follow-on, eventually ending up being hammered by an innings and 273 runs in response to South Africa's mammoth 575 for six (declared).

In both innings, Bangladesh witnessed extraordinary batting collapses only to see their tailenders helping them out to take their scores past the 100-run mark.

Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto, who has been under the scanner for his form with the willow and for uncertainty regarding his captaincy, was one of the six Bangladeshi batters who got dismissed twice in a day.

The southpaw, who scored only one fifty and a total of 317 runs in his last 15 Test innings this year at an average of 21.14, couldn't deny the fact that his own poor performance had an impact on the team's disastrous performance not only in this game but also in the last two series as well.

"The most disappointing thing is that in my last few innings, I've been getting out between 20 to 40 runs after getting set. This is damaging to the team. I need to focus more on my batting in this regard," Shanto admitted that he needed to step up.

The burden of scoring runs at the top does not only fall on the skipper and Shanto pointed that out as well.

"We have been batting like this for a long time. If you don't get top-order partnerships, the rest of the batters will find it difficult in red-ball cricket. I don't know how our top-order batters prepare or think, but if it goes on like this, this will be the result.

"This was a good wicket. Even in Mirpur [in the first Test that the Tigers lost by seven wickets], the type of wicket it was, we shouldn't have gotten out so quickly. Overall, we didn't bat well in these two Tests," Shanto added.

Before the start of the series, Shanto had expressed his wish to step down from his role as the Tigers' all-format captain. Shanto, however, said that his hesitance regarding captaincy 'might have' been on the back of his mind but also mentioned that it still could not justify such a shambolic batting performance by his side.