Sports Desk

While Bangladesh received a blow as far as their opening practice session is concerned due to persistent rain in Dhaka from the afternoon that did not allow them to train as per schedule, it was not the case for the touring party as they completed a busy day at office by completing nearly three hours practice sessions.

Bangladesh certainly hold a special place in Kagiso Rabada’s life considering he made his presence felt when they last toured in 2015 by claiming a hat-trick in his ODI debut against the hosts and since then progressed to a level that he is considered the leader of their pace unit in the present days across formats. Rabada, who is currently just one wicket away from joining the 300 club in Test cricket, destroyed Bangladesh's batting line-up with sheer pace during his first visit but with time seemed to have learnt that only pace won’t be good enough in this part of the world, where wickets will tend to be more spin-friendly compared to pacers.

As a result, he was focused on trying to hone his reverse swing skill under the guidance of pace bowling coach Piet Botha, who spent most of the time trying to prepare the old ball for him that is more suitable for the reverse swing. It was no different for other pacers as well considering they were busy both with old and new balls.

South Africa seemed well aware that their major threat lies in handling the spin attack of the hosts as they hold quite a commendable record at their own territory and as a result, their batters spend most of the time handling slow bowlers that included several net bowlers along with Keshav Maharaj and Co. South African batting coach Ashwell Prince, who is considered to be one of the better players of spin in his era, spent busy time trying to explain what needs to be done and what not in this kind of condition and the visitors cannot ask for a better man than him as he is well aware about it due to his association with Bangladesh, where he earlier served as a batting coach of the national cricket team.