'Should've scored at least 400'

For the third day in a row South Africa have dominated, and for the third day in a row Bangladesh's post-day press conference left a lot unanswered. Questions, asked by South African and Bangladeshi journalists alike, still lingered about the decision to field first but there was not a satisfactory answer as the players trotted out by the team management -- Sabbir Rahman on the first day, Taskin Ahmed the next and Mominul Haque yesterday -- are not part of the leadership group.

The party line in the first two days was that the wicket was misread, which flies in the face of what skipper Mushfiqur Rahim said before the match -- that the wicket did not look difficult, was dry and likely to take turn as the match wore on.

Mominul, who top-scored with 77 in Bangladesh's 320 all out, however seemed tired of the dead horse being beaten and preferred to look ahead, despite South Africa leading by 230 runs with eight wickets in when an early close with 16 overs remaining in the day was called because of bad light at Senwes Park in Potchefstroom.

"Wicket is getting better by the day, so I think it will play better tomorrow," said Mominul when asked if he thought the decision was a good one. In other words, as it would improve day by day according to him, the decision was good, a view he later reiterated.

Mominul, who played 150 balls for his 77, was the only Bangladesh batsman who seemed to take his time. It was a comeback innings of sorts -- he was dropped for Bangladesh's 100th Test in Colombo in March and the first Test against Australia in September. His fellow returnee Mahmudullah Riyad who missed one more Test than Mominul -- the second against Australia -- also hit a half-century, his first away from the subcontinent since his 53 in Gros Islet in September 2014.

"I don't think I changed my batting style. I changed my mentality," he said when commenting on his success after returning to the side. "In these situations if you get stuck in your mentality, you will suffer. I just worked on my mentality. If you have to survive at this level, you have to be mentally strong."

But Mahmudullah (66 off 124) was not as collected as Mominul, nor was Sabbir (30 off 46), Tamim (39 off 67) or Mushfiqur Rahim (44 off 57). All the aforementioned batsmen participated in four consecutive 50-plus stands, but Mominul admitted that the fact that the highest among them was 69 is something they will have to correct in the next innings.

"I think our batsmen made some small mistakes," said the soft-spoken batsman. "Most of us were getting out after settling in. We have to overcome this in the second innings."

"I don't think we are happy scoring just 300 runs on this type of wicket. They got almost 500 runs so we should have scored at least 400, or even closer to their total. I don't think anyone is happy with this score."

After two days of blatant and blind denial, that last sentence in itself was refreshing.