A topsy-turvy tale of Bangladeshi pace and South African spin

The standard fare in a South Africa-Bangladesh Test match is pace, movement and bounce. It is usually the home side that has blown away these infrequent visitors with these weapons. These ingredients have, of course, been on display in the Durban Test, but it has come from the opposite direction.

It is to the Bangladesh fast bowlers' credit that they have so far outbowled South Africa's fast bowlers. They have taken 11 wickets collectively, as Bangladesh took 20 wickets in an overseas Test for only the eighth time in their history.

Just as out of the ordinary, however, has been South Africa's almost total reliance on their spinners in this Test match. Keshav Maharaj, Simon Harmer and Dean Elgar have combined to bowl 84 overs so far, the most by South Africa's spinners in a home Test in 57 years. Thanks to Mehidy Hasan Miraz's efforts, the total from both sides is the highest number of overs of spin in South Africa since 1998.

Harmer, playing his first Test in seven years, led the South African attack with four wickets on the second evening while Maharaj supported him with inch-perfect lengths for 37 overs, albeit wicketless. Maharaj and Harmer, who became the first spin pair to open the bowling in South Africa, then took three Bangladesh wickets within the first five overs of the fourth innings.

Spin will continue to play a major role on the fifth day, and not just because of how the Kingsmead pitch has played. South Africa have a severely depleted pace attack in the absence of Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and Lungi Ngidi, who are playing the IPL, and Anrich Nortje, who is injured.

Bangladesh, meanwhile, have begun developing a good fast-bowling unit. They didn't even miss Shoriful Islam, who has been critical to their recent success, as Taskin Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain and Khaled Ahmed combined brilliantly twice in the game.

The role reversal has left both camps slightly bemused. South Africa batting coach Justin Sammons said the team had expected the Bangladesh fast bowlers to do well after their exploits in the ODI series, given their ability to bowl hard lengths and use reverse-swing.

"It is interesting, it is quite funny actually," Sammons said. "You'd think it will be the other way around. From our perspective, the guys have put in a lot of work against spin. We do back ourselves in turning conditions. Their seamers hit good lengths. They made scoring tough for us.

"There was an expectation that their seam attack was going to be a challenge. We knew we had to bat really well against them. Their seamers bowled brilliantly in the ODI series. Their lengths were brilliant in the ODIs, and they showed that skill in this game. They also showed the ability to tail towards the end. We also can't take anything away from Mehidy at the way he bowled. He has shown great discipline and control. We couldn't underestimate any of their bowlers."

Bangladesh team director Khaled Mahmud said the visitors had come prepared to face a battery of fast bowling, but ended up succumbing to good bowling from the South African spin twins.

"Certainly we didn't expect it if you consider how the last few series panned out here," he said. "We trained on bouncy and pacy pitches back in Bangladesh thinking we will obviously get those conditions here. A team however has to accept the conditions and adapt itself. We are used to spin conditions. I think [Yasir Ali] Rabbi's run-out [in the first innings] was very costly. We may have taken the lead if he was around for a bit longer.

"We didn't execute well against their spinners. Harmer and Maharaj are really good bowlers. I don't want to think too much about the three wickets today. We want to be as positive as possible tomorrow."

Mahmud said Bangladesh would have always picked the extra batter given Shakib Al Hasan is not around, but they don't regret picking only one specialist spinner, and pointed out that they had picked the same combination when they had beaten New Zealand in Mount Maunganui earlier this year.

"I think the bowlers came back strongly today," Mahmud said. "Despite his shoulder injury, Taskin bowled really well today. He taped up his shoulder and took painkillers.

"I don't think we misread the conditions. They have picked three seamers and two spinners. We are missing Shakib quite a lot. Whenever he is not playing, we usually play an extra batter. We also had Taskin injured, so thankfully we picked three seamers in total. We also picked three seamers and one spinner in Mount Maunganui."