Focus on batters in series decider

With the ODI series level at 1-1 between South Africa and Bangladesh, the focus will be on the batting of the visitors which has struggled in the 2nd ODI.

Although Bangladesh were excellent with the bat in the 1st match, which the Tigers won by a comfortable margin of 38 runs after posting 314, some of their key players are yet to fire.

The good news for Bangladesh though is that they will play the series decider at Supersport Park, the same venue where they won the 1st match and not at the Wanderers where they struggled to cope with the uneven bounce of the surface early in the innings. 

The focus will be on Mahmudullah Riyad, who has been struggling to find form with the bat in recent times. 

He has played five ODIs in this year and has managed just 93 runs at a strike rate of 66 and a high score of 29 not out. 

His average in South Africa (22.60) is also one that is below his career average of 34.56. 

Mushfiqur Rahim has also not had a good series so far with scores of nine and 11 but his record in South Africa is a good one, especially in the last ODI series where he scored 110* and 60.

Bangladesh will be hoping he can replicate the form he showed in the last series in South Africa in 2017 in the series decider.

A batter who hasn't looked comfortable at the crease is ODI captain Tamim Iqbal, especially in the 2nd match, where he kept playing forward to deliveries that were jumping up and eventually paid the price after scoring just one run. 

In the first match, Tamim managed to deal with the early swing however and went on to form a 95-run partnership with in-form batter and fellow opener Litton Das, which set the platform for a 300+ score. 

But his record in South Africa is also a poor one with an average of 26 compared to his career average of 36.33. 

"If we can handle the first ten overs well, and if we don't give them too many wickets, we can definitely score runs against them in the middle overs," Tamim said in the pre-match press conference.

The pitch is expected to be a good one for batters, similar to the one in the 1st ODI, which means invariable bounce will not be an issue. 

The form of Litton and Afif Hossain has been a big plus for the visitors in the matches so far, and useful runs at the backend of the innings from Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Taskin Ahmed have also helped the team's cause. 

Shakib Al Hasan, who has made himself available for the decider despite having family members hospitalised in Dhaka, played one of his best innings in recent times in the 1st match, and he could once again be the catalyst here.

South Africa's bowling unit, barring Kagiso Rabada and Tabrais Shamsi, has lacked bite and penetration at times and is one that can be counter-attacked if the conditions are good.

If the batting clicks once again, the Tigers could be looking at a historic series win against the Proteas on their home soil.