Bangladesh had a miserable tour of South Africa as they lost all the matches in all the three formats. They lost both the Test matches by huge margins and then lost the three-match One Day Series 3-0. Having lost the first T20 by 20 runs in Bloemfontein, the Bangla tigers came into the second T20 to salvage some pride and tie the T20 series but were completely blown away by an exceptional innings by David Miller as they lost the by 83 runs.
Bangladesh’s T20 captain Shakib Al Hasan feels that the loss in the Test series eventually led to the negative vibes in the dressing room which resulted in failures in the limited overs format. Shakib said:
“I think a big reason [for the performance] was that we didn’t do well in Tests, and when the ODIs came around that mood lingered into that format, similarly, when we did not do well in the ODIs, it lingered into the T20s. If we had done well in Tests, then we could have done even better in ODIs, and even better thereafter in the T20s,”
He also added, “That’s how these things work. If you are in the dressing room, you can tell from the atmosphere. The mentality is different in a winning dressing room; everyone talks about winning. In a losing dressing room, people talk about personal things, and unwittingly negative things come in. Atmosphere is important. More than one or two people performing, it is important that the team performs.”
In the third ODI, Bangladesh won the toss and chose to bowl first. The decision backfired as the Hashim Amla and David Miller took to the Bangladeshi bowling attack. Amla 85 off 52 balls before Miller took center stage. South Africa finished at 224/4 in their 20 overs. Bangladesh was bowled out for 141 in 18.3 overs.
Apart from a century in the first ODI by Mushfiqur Rahim, no Bangladeshi player impressed with his performance in the series. Shakib said:
“The records will show that no team has performed well in away series in the last three or four years. But we were not able to compete in this series, which is frustrating, we played well in the last 2-3 years which is why we expected to fight here. But unfortunately we were not able to get out from the losing streak,”
“We all know what our ability is, and none of us could perform up to that. So in that regard I am sure that everyone – starting with the BCB, the coaching staff and us players – will work hard to overcome it, which is important if we want to move forward, People will have personal opinions but I won’t say that we have to start thinking about sea changes after just one series. It is a little normal that results like this will happen on overseas tours. Maybe it was expected that we would lose, but we did not expect to play the cricket we did to lose the way we did.”