Maharaj credits Tamim for helping him work out the Dhaka pitch

Keshav Maharaj said that he benefited from Tamim Iqbal’s advice about the Dhaka pitch. The left-arm spinner has taken six wickets in the opening Test match against Bangladesh at the Shere Bangla National Stadium so far, bowling almost the perfect line and length in conditions that have assisted both seamers and the spinners. South Africa are in a good position in the game, needing three more wickets to bowl Bangladesh out in their second innings with the hosts leading by 81 runs.

“I just sent Tamim bhai a message,” Maharaj said. “I have got a good relationship with him. Obviously we played in the BPL. I just asked for some advice based on conditions and how to go about the business. He gave me a few words in terms of how the wicket would play. It wasn’t wrong. He read the wicket to the tee.”

Maharaj played under Tamim for Fortune Barishal in BPL 2024. He took three wickets in three matches, but all of them were at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram. Maharaj is playing his first match in Dhaka and so he did what other overseas bowlers visiting the subcontinent do. In 1998, Shane Warne got in touch with Bishen Singh Bedi so that he could be better informed about how to bowl to Sachin Tendulkar.

South Africa began the third day’s play with three wickets in the first 30 minutes before Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Jaker Ali put on 138 runs for the seventh wicket. Maharaj bowled 37 overs, taking 3 for 105.

“It’s nice to get a marathon spell out of the belt,” he said. “I love bowling. We should get a little bit less [square] cut balls at the start of the spell, but I think I settled in quite nicely. When the ball got a little bit older, there wasn’t much reaction from the wicket so I tried to keep it as tight as possible.”

Maharaj’s discipline allows him to play both attacking and defensives roles based on the match situation. He helped keep the pressure up from the other end when Kagiso Rabada was running hot in the first session and then later South Africa looked to him to pose as the primary threat, which he did to break a big partnership and pick up Jaker’s wicket.

“We have a four-bowler line-up in our attack,” Maharaj said. “My job, apart from trying to create opportunity, was to hold up an end. I think this morning when I bowled in tandem with KG [Rabada], you could see that his tail was up and got the ball to do a little bit.

“So my job at that stage was to try and hold up an end, and then when the switch came, I posed a little bit more when the ball started to spin. I think as a spinner you want to allow yourself to settle in and get those long spells on a wicket like this, knowing that there is a ball that will turn and be in your favour. Luckily enough, towards the back end in the middle of my spell, I got some reward from that.”

Maharaj gave credit to Mehidy and Jaker for putting up the rearguard action. He said that South Africa tried really hard to remove the pair, but couldn’t do it for a long period. “I think yesterday was probably the day that we went a little bit searching (for wickets), if I’m honest. And then we got the three wickets, and I think Mehidy and Jaker Ali played really well.

“We threw everything at them, and I don’t think it was a case of us taking our foot off the gas. I think they played really well, and you must give credit towards the batters in that situation,” he said.