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Smith hails Shahadat

Ashraful blames curator

Sports Reporter
difficult for us to score," he added.
Lanky paceman Shahadat took the fourth day's only wicket by trapping Ashwell Prince in front of the wicket to finish with second innings figures of 3 for 70 and thus completing a match haul of nine wickets while Rafique, brightened his hopes of claiming 100 Test wickets before bidding international cricket goodbye after taking four wickets in the match.
Smith however pinpointed the Mirpur wicket behind their difficulty to win the match.
"I think probably the nature of the wicket is a little tougher than the other sub-continent wickets and (that's why) it was natural that we had to work hard for victory.
"The lack of bounce and pace is something we took some time to get used to. It is good to see the way the guys played in the second innings to chase down more than 200 runs," he said.
"I don't think we really adapted to the condition as well in that first innings. In the second innings, we had to bowl under pressure. I thought we bowled well on the second day without much reward. We got our reward in the morning for the pressure we have created,"
Bangladesh lost yet another Test match against South Africa, but their five-
wicket defeat in the first of the two-nfatch series was in no way a meek surrender like four previous occasions.
And it was none other than the South African skipper, Graeme Smith who praised the Tigers' efforts in the match as the home team pushed them hard in the first two days including that creditable first innings lead at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur
"It was a hard-fought game and I am very happy that we finally won it. Bangladesh played really good cricket in the first two days, to be fair, I'm thinking that the fast bowler (Shahadat Hossain) bowled really well," observed the Proteas skipper in a post-match briefing.
"He (Shahadat) used the conditions well, he got reverse swing which made it tough. He bowled the bail in the right areas. And I think (Mohammad) Rafique really did a good job in the first innings containing one end that made it headded.
Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful also expressed his disappointment over the behaviour of the pitch in Mirpur.
"It was not the wicket what we had desired (from our curator). It was difficult to bat in the first day but I think it's gradually improved. We didn't get the turn as we expected. But I must say our bowlers gave too many half volleys in the initial stage of the South African second innings," explained Ashraful.
"The 200-run target could have been good enough if the pitch behaved like the first day," he added.
The doom-faced Ashraful, who astounded everybody by making a comment after the third day's play, however admitted that they had lost another opportunity in Tests.
"No doubt we lost the opportunities because of the batsmen's failure. Some of our batsmen got starts but couldn't make it into a big one which was really a crime," admitted the ace batsman, who was also one of those batsmen.
His South African counterpart Smith also said that the Tigers' batting should improve if they want to be a competitive team.
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"Their batters have to keep improving. I think the challenge for Bangladesh is how they are going to play on wickets around the world because we read a lot of articles about their recent performance in New Zealand and Sri Lanka," he
The left-hander also believes that the current batch of players in the Bangladesh side are experienced enough to handle the pressure.
"You have got a player like Mohammad Ashraful, who played over a hundred one-day matches. Some players have experience under their belt, even though they are young. Some of your players played more cricket than some of our players".
SCOREBOARD
Final scoreboard on the fourth day of the first Test between Bangladesh and South Africa at the Sher-e- Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur on Monday:
BANGLADESH: First innings 192 (Aftab 44, Ashraful 34; Morkel 5-50) SOUTH AFRICA: First innings 170
(De Villiers 46; Shahadat 6-27) BANGLADESH: Second innings (Siddiqui 74, Ashraful 24, Aftab 24; Kallis 5-30, Steyn 4 -48)
SOUTH AFRICA: Second innings (overnight 178-4) McKenzie c Bashar b Shahadat 26 Smith lbw b Rafique 62
Amlac Siddiqui b Rafique 46
Kallis cMortazab Shahadat 7
Prince lbw b Shahadat 38
DeVilliersnotout 19
Bouchernotout 2
Extras:(b-2,lb-2,w-l) 5
Total: (For5wkts67.5ovcrs) 205 Fall of wickets: 1 52, 2-125, 3-144, 4 144,5-193
Bowler O M R W
Mortaza 12 0 47 0
Shahadat 19 0 70 3
Rafique 27.5 6 54 2
Shakib 7 0 24 0
Ashraful 2 0 6 0
Result: South Africa won by five wickets and take 1 0 lead in the 2-Test series.
Man-of-thc-match: Jacques Kallis. Toss: Bangladesh.
Umpires: Steve Bucknor and Aleem Dar.