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Stage set for Proteas spin twins to leave Tigers in a twist once again

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South Africa's Keshav Maharaj celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of Bangladesh's Yasir Ali (not seen) during the third day of the second Test cricket match at St George's Park in Gqeberha on Sunday
South Africa’s Keshav Maharaj celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of Bangladesh’s Yasir Ali (not seen) during the third day of the second Test cricket match at St George’s Park in Gqeberha on Sunday. Picture: Marco Longari, AFP

South Africa’s spin twins Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer picked up three wickets at the end of play in Gqeberha to leave the home side on the brink of victory.

Gqeberha — The stage has been set for South Africa’s spin magicians Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer to haul out their bag of tricks once again.

The duo were superb at Kingsmead, including bowling in tandem throughout Bangladesh’s second innings, where they claimed 14 wickets in the match and now they have two days at St George’s Park to take a further seven wickets to secure a 2-0 series victory for the hosts.

They’ve already done their job in Bangladesh’s first innings where they combined for five of the wickets to fall with Harmer collecting 3/39 and Maharaj 2/57 to dismiss the visitors for 217 in response to South Africa’s 453 all out.

This provided Dean Elgar’s men with a 236-run cushion. Elgar though chose not to enforce the follow-on opting instead to give Harmer and Maharaj some time to rest those precious spinning fingers.

During the intervening period South Africa’s batters, particularly the opening pair of Elgar (26) and Erwee (41) strode out with a great intent before the loss of a few wickets, including the opening duo, Keegan Petersen, Ryan Rickleton and Temba Bavuma , slowed the charge for an early declaration a bit.

This was primarily due to Bangladesh’s own left-arm spinner Taijul Islam taking a further three wickets to take his match tally to nine.

But Kyle Verreynne ensured that Elgar could ring the declaration bell before the close of the third day with an aggressive 39 not out off 30 balls that left Bangladesh requiring a mammoth 412 for victory.

The surface has already shown that it will provide significant assistance with Harmer and Maharaj gaining appreciable turn during the twilight period.

Maharaj certainly wasted no time in getting stuck into his work by dismissing Mahmudul Hasan Joy with the third delivery of the second innings before trapping Najmul Hossain Shanto infront with another sharp turning delivery.

Harmer was not going to be outdone with the off-spinner claiming Tamim Iqbal’s scalp when he found the shoulder of the left-hander’s bat with Wiaan Mulder taking a comfortable catch at slip.

@ZaahierAdams

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