Mirpur: The South African cricket team has started their full-fledged Bangladesh tour to play a 2-match Test cricket series. The first match of the series as part of the 2025 World Test Championship between these two teams was started on October 21 at Sher-E-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur. In this match, the Bangladesh team, who won the toss, announced that they would bat first. However, the team that played first could not withstand the excellent bowling of the South African team and lost all the wickets in just 40.1 overs and accumulated only 106 runs.
After that, the South African team, who played their first innings, lost all the wickets in 88.4 overs and accumulated 308 runs. The hosts then came into the field with a deficit of 202 runs. But Mehidy Hasan Miraz’s unbeaten 87 and Jaker Ali’s 58 helped Bangladesh into an 81-run lead over South Africa before bad light brought an early finish to day three of the first Test on Wednesday. Bangladesh was 287/3 when the umpires’ called stumps about an hour before the scheduled end of the day’s play.
On the fourth day, with only three wickets in hand, the Bangladesh team came into the field. But Kagiso Rabada was eventually trapped LBW to Nayeem Hasan for 16 off 29 on just the third ball of the day. And then, Taijul Islam (7) helped bring up 300, but the innings was over soon after as he was caught by Tristan Stubbs before middle-order batter Mehidy Hasan Miraz fell just short of his century at Rabada’s hands, as he was the last wicket to fall, dismissed for 97 runs off 191 balls, which included 10 fours and a six.
Finally, Bangladesh lost all the wickets in 89.5 overs and accumulated 307 runs in their second innings. Kagiso Rabada took the maximum 6 wickets, and Keshav Maharaj took 3 wickets for South Africa. Chasing a target of 106 in the end, Tony de Zorzi and captain Markram gave a joint start for the South African team. But Taijul Islam dismissed Captain Markram for 20 off 27, and then Tony de Zorzi scored 41 runs off 52 balls, which included 7 fours, before being dismissed by Taijul Islam.
At last, Taijul Islam also dismissed David Bedingham for 12 off 13 balls, but on the other side, Tristan Stubbs scored 30 not out off 37 balls, which included 4 fours and a six. Finally, South Africa scored 106-3 in 22 overs and easily won by 7 wickets before lunch on the fourth day. As a result, South Africa defeated Bangladesh at home and took an early lead in the series by 1–0* (2). After 14 years, South Africa recorded a victory for the first time on the Asian continent and created a record. Also, South Africa has moved up to fourth place on the World Test Championship table after a seven-wicket win over Bangladesh in Mirpur.
