Cricket South Africa Invitation XI 257 for 4 (Markram 82, Breetzke 71, de Villiers 43) beat Bangladesh 255 (Shakib 68, Sabbir 52, Frylinck 2-25, Phangiso 2-46) by six wickets
A CSA Invitation XI headlined by internationals AB de Villiers and JP Duminy comfortably chased 256 against the touring Bangladesh side, who were bolstered by the arrival of Shakib Al Hasan. Though Shakib's importance to the Bangladesh team was underlined when he top-scored with a 67-ball 68, it was not enough to trouble the South African batsmen on their own turf.
Bangladesh showed their strongest sign of being more willing to front up when ODI captain Mashrafe Mortaza chose to bat in Bloemfontein. Test captain Mushfiqur Rahim had made the opposite call on batsmen-friendly surfaces in both Tests and his reasoning was almost justified when Bangladesh slumped to 63 for 4 in the 15th over in this match.
The wounds from Test performance still seemed raw as the Bangladesh openers were dismissed by experienced Dolphins campaigner Robbie Frylinck. No. 3 Liton Das was caught behind off medium-pacer Malusi Siboto for 8 and Mushfiqur, who has not suffered further complications from the blow he took to the head on Sunday, fell to left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso for 22. Shakib and Mahmudullah put on 57 for the fifth wicket before Shakib and Sabbir Rahman shared a sixth-wicket stand of 76 and Bangladesh were back on track.
Just when Shakib could have started to push on, he also fell to Phangiso, who only played in the match because Keshav Maharaj was rested. Sabbir went on to score 52 but Bangladesh did not have much more to offer. Their last four wickets fell for 36 runs, they were dismissed with 11 balls remaining in their innings and the CSA XI only needed to score at 5.1 runs an over to win.
New Test opener Aiden Markram and national Under-19 player Matthew Breetzke started much quicker than that. Their opening stand was worth 147 inside 26 overs, with Markram blazing a 68-ball 82 to make a case for inclusion in the limited-overs' sides, and Breetzke proving his potential with a patient 71. Nasir Hossain separated the pair when he caught Markram off his own bowling, bringing CSA XI captain JP Duminy to the crease.
When Breetzke was bowled five overs later and de Villiers walked out, Bangladesh were bowling to a pair they will see a lot of in the next two weeks but they did not manage to strike any fear into them. Duminy and de Villiers were together for 64 balls and scored 62 runs between them before Duminy was stumped. De Villiers went on to score 43, his highest score in three innings this summer before he was caught behind. He has only played one first-class game this season, for Titans against Warriors and scored 5 and 32 and is now available across all formats for the national side.
Bangladesh will not have to worry about facing de Villiers in whites but have much bigger problems on their hands. Apart from not being able to post enough runs to challenge their opposition, they have also yet to bowl them out once on this tour.
