Bangladesh Leaves For South Africa

Bangladesh cricket team will fly to South Africa tonight to play three one-day internationals and two Tests besides a Twenty20 international during a monthlong tour.

The Tigers will kick off their second trip to South Africa with the lone Twenty20 international at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg on November 5 and then play a three-match one-day series and the two-match Test series.

Most of the current team players have had the experience of playing in South African conditions but it's for the first time that all the players led by Mohammad Ashraful are going to play a full series as not a single player have survived from that first tour in 2002-03.

After the first trip, Bangladesh toured the country to play the 2003 World Cup and the 2007 Twenty20 World Championships while rookie players like Nayeem Islam, Imrul Kayes and Mahbubul Alam have played in the country with the GP-BCB Cricket Academy.

"It is the first Test series for everybody in South Africa. We had the experience of playing in that condition but Tests are a a different ball game," said Ashraful, who was in the team for both the World Cups along with deputy Mashrafe Bin Mortaza.

Bangladesh batting was terrible in the first trip when they suffered innings defeats in both matches under the leadership of Khaled Mashud and after six years, the challenge remains the same as they have to bat well to show any improvement.

Ashraful's men were competitive in the just-concluded home series against New Zealand but there were reasons to worry with their batting performance in the series as the efforts from the lower order salvaged the Tigers.

Coach Jamie Siddons has issued a warning after the series that in South Africa if his top four batsmen fail like the home series against the Kiwis, they cannot expect the same service from the lower order batsmen all the time.

Ashraful was however very optimistic about a much improved batting performance in South Africa.

"It's a big challenge but I think the wicket will be good for batting because we are going to play the series in the middle of their season. We just need to stick to our basics," he said.