Bangladesh have appointed former South Africa all-rounder Dale Benkenstein as batting specialist for their tour of South Africa, covering the two Tests, three ODIs and three T20Is. The Bangladesh Cricket Board made the appointment on Monday, The Daily Star reported.
It fills a seat that has been empty since the BCB removed Mohammad Ashraful as batting coach before the home Tests against West Indies. The man Bangladesh have chosen spent two years, from 2017 to 2019, coaching South Africa’s own batters, and the first Test at the Wanderers is five days away.
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Key points
- Dale Benkenstein, 52, is Bangladesh’s batting specialist for all three formats in South Africa
- He was South Africa’s batting coach from 2017 to 2019; his last ODI as a player was against Bangladesh in 2002
- Malibongwe Maketa takes the fielding; the first Test starts at the Wanderers on 15 November
A batting job filled for one tour
Mohammad Salahuddin stepped in as interim batting coach for the West Indies series. He has since gone back to the board’s High Performance Unit to work with the Bangladesh A players, and a permanent batting coach has not been named, CricTracker reported. Benkenstein’s brief runs to the end of the tour, which finishes with the third T20I on 13 December.
The rest of Phil Simmons’s staff has been reshuffled too. South African Malibongwe Maketa, appointed assistant coach in October on a deal to November 2028, will look after the fielding. “Our assistant coach Maketa will oversee our fielding during the tour of South Africa,” a BCB official said, as quoted by CricTracker, which also reported that fielding coach James Pamment was ruled out with back pain and has since parted ways with the board.
His last ODI was against Bangladesh
Benkenstein played 23 ODIs. The last of them was against Bangladesh at Benoni in October 2002, when he took 1 for 17 in four overs, including the wicket of Tushar Imran, as South Africa held Bangladesh to 154 for 9 and won by 10 wickets.
His bigger mark was in county cricket. He scored 15,962 first-class runs at 44.21 and captained Durham to their first County Championship title in 2008, a year after the Friends Provident Trophy, then coached Hampshire to the Division Two title in 2014. He is currently a batting consultant at Durham, The Daily Star said, and he was South Africa’s batting coach at the 2019 World Cup.
Why the timing matters
Bangladesh have never beaten South Africa in a Test, and they leave home with a batting order still unsettled. Shadman Islam’s ankle fracture brought in uncapped Mahfijul Islam Robin and a recalled Naim Sheikh for the 16-man Test squad, and the series against West Indies ended 1-0 to the visitors after the draw in Sylhet.
What Benkenstein can give them in a week is local knowledge rather than a rebuilt technique: how the Wanderers and SuperSport Park play on the first morning, and how South Africa’s quicks use them. That attack is likely to include Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and Anrich Nortje, who is in South Africa’s 15.
What happens next
The squad leaves for South Africa this week. The first Test starts in Johannesburg on 15 November, the second in Centurion on 23 November. The ODIs follow on 1, 4 and 7 December and the T20Is on 10, 12 and 13 December.
Market watch
- A batting coach with local knowledge does not change Bangladesh’s record against South Africa overnight, and first-innings runs at the Wanderers remain the weak point.
- Watch the opening pair: Naim and Robin have little Test experience between them against an attack built on pace and bounce.
- If the job turns permanent after the tour, it would be a longer-term signal about how the BCB wants its batters to prepare for overseas Tests.
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Top image: Photo: Nurunnaby Chowdhury (Hasive) / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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Macaela Becker
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