South Africa v Bangladesh, Test series 2017 – Statistical Preview

South Africa will begin their long home season with the 2-match Test series against Bangladesh which will kick-start the Asian team’s tour of South Africa for all the three formats for the first time since 2008. The home team would like to forget their failures in England before the Indian series while Bangladesh will face a challenge of playing away after defeating England, Sri Lanka and Australia in a Test each in last one year in the sub-continent.

Here we look at the key stats and numbers ahead of the series.

2 – 2017 is the only the 3rd year where Bangladesh won more than one Test match. They won three Tests in 2014 (against Zimbabwe) and two Tests in 2009 (against Windies) but never managed to defeat more than one opponent in the same calendar year.

4 – Number of consecutive wins in Tests for South Africa at home. Since losing to England at Johannesburg in January 2016, the Proteas won five of the six Tests they played at home.

7 – Number of wins South Africa have secured by an innings margin in Test cricket against Bangladesh. The African team defeated Bangladesh in eight Test matches so far with one of them being by a margin of five wickets while the remaining seven were innings wins.

10 – Number of Test matches in which South Africa and Bangladesh have faced each other. South Africa won all the four Tests they previously played against Bangladesh in South Africa and defeated the home team in four out of six Tests in Bangladesh. Both the drawn matches were during the Bangladesh-South Africa series in 2015.

43 – Wickets Mehidy Hasan Miraz has picked up in his Test career so far. He needs seven more wickets to become the 6th Bangladesh player to take 50 Test wickets. If Mehidy takes seven wickets in the next three Tests, he will be the quickest among Bangladesh player to get  50 Test wickets.

58 – Number of Test matches Bangladesh have played since Shakib Al Hasan’s Test debut. Shakib featured in 51 games missing out only seven Tests his side played. Bangladesh lost six out those seven Tests they played without Shakib in the XI since May 2007.

305 – Runs Hashim Amla has scored against Bangladesh in Test cricket. These are the most by a player in South Africa-Bangladesh Tests among those playing currently. Mushfiqur Rahim’s 238 runs against South Africa are the most among Bangladeshis.

3847 – Runs Tamim Iqbal has aggregated in Test cricket so far. He needs 153 more runs to become the first Bangladesh player to breach the 4000-run mark.