There were no fireworks on the second morning of the second Test between South Africa and Bangladesh at Centurion today, although Proteas captain Graeme Smith had to trudge his way back to the dressing room 35 minutes after the start of play.

At lunch, South Africa had 97 for two in response to Bangladesh's first innings total of 250.

Bangladesh may have been stung by Smith's comments on Tuesday that they appeared to have made little progress in the eight years they have been playing Test cricket, but they have been a much better outfit in the second Test than at any time on this short tour of South Africa.

Coach Jamie Siddons said before the match that he believed the team would play better than in Bloemfontein and, so far, they have proved him right with the batsmen playing more responsibly and the bowlers rising to their task.

Asked about media reports that Bangladesh should not be playing Test cricket, top scorer Zunaed Siddique said “That's their opinion. We just concentrate on our cricket.”

Smith added 12 runs to his overnight score before Mahbubul Alam trapped him leg before wicket for 27. Hashim Amla, batting with superb style and confidence, and Jacques Kallis put on 50 runs together, with Amla contributing the lion's share of those runs.

At lunch, Amla was two runs short of his 10th Test half century, and Kallis had 17.

Sapa

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.