Cooler weather but colder cricket

Komen drifted away after sweeping Bangladesh’s coastal districts two days ago but has left a wet and cooler weather for the countrymen to cope with. However, the cricket remains colder as no balls rolled at Sher-e-Bangla in the capital due to damp outfield. There has now been very little play in the Bangladesh-South Africa 2nd Test as there has been much waiting for clearer skies.
The rain god prevented start of 1st session’s play on Day-4 at Mirpur on Sunday. Cyclone Komen followed by a land depression over Khulna and adjoining areas have completely ruined two-day’s game and also clouding the possibility to start the 4th day’s play in the 5-day game. The wet outfield at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium and intermittent rains since Sunday morning have eaten up 1-and-half-hour of the stipulated time for a full day’s play. Bangladesh and South African national team players were staying at their respective hotels and the grounds men were busy covering the pitch and the outfield with tarpaulin since early in the morning.
Earlier, the second and third days’ game had been called off without playing a single ball due to incessant rain with the influence of cyclonic storm Komen, which turned into land depression on Friday. Bangladesh, who elected to bat first on Thursday (July 30), the opening day the Test and scored 246 runs losing eight wickets. The hosts played a little more than 88 overs after captain Mushfiqur Rahim won the toss at 9:20am on Thursday. Mushfiq 65, Mominul 40, Mahmudullah 35, Shakib 35 helped Tigers reach the score in 88.1 overs as Steyn and Duminy bagged three wickets each. Nasir Hossain would start batting with 13 runs if play resumes either Sunday or Monday, the final and last day of the game.
With much of the game is washed away, now anyone can guess that the amount of time lost in the final and the last match of the two-Test series made the chance of any result other than a damp draw unlikely. In that case South Africa, who are currently at the top of the Test rankings on 130 points, will lose five points, while Bangladesh, who sit at No. 9, will gain six points.
Bangladesh
Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Mominul Haque, Mahmudullah, Mushfiqur Rahim (captain), Shakib Al Hasan, Nasir Hossain, Liton Das, Mohammad Shahid, Mustafizur Rahman, Jubair Hossain.
South Africa
D Elgar, S van Zyl, F du Plessis, HM Amla (captain), T Bavuma, JP Duminy, DJ Vilas†, VD Philander, DW Steyn, SR Harmer, M Morkel.

- mbz