South Africa respect Bangladesh like Australia and England, coach Conrad wary of Hridoy

Bangladesh are touring South Africa for a full series across three formats, with two Tests, three one-day internationals and three Twenty20 matches. The action begins with the Johannesburg Test next Sunday.

Batter Tawhid Hridoy is a talking point before the series. He played a record-breaking innings of 242 runs against the West Indies.

South Africa head coach Shukri Conrad has kept track of that performance. At a press conference he joked that he was praying for Hridoy to fail this time, saying it must be his turn to fail now.

Conrad had seen Hridoy before. On an earlier Bangladesh A tour of South Africa, Hridoy scored more than 350 runs in a red-ball match. Referring to that innings, Conrad called him an extraordinary player and said that if the Potchefstroom match were still going on, Hridoy would probably still be batting. He said they had watched some videos of his batting online.

Although Bangladesh's batters have not shown their desired form recently, the home coach holds a positive view of them. He said the good thing about batters is that when they return to a place where they have done well, they play with a lot of confidence, and Hridoy would be far more confident playing here.

Conrad also referred to Bangladesh beating Australia in Darwin. He said South Africa are not taking Bangladesh lightly: they will arrive confident, South Africa respect them exactly as much as they respect Australia and England, and the most important thing for his side is to stay focused on the present.