South Africa vs Bangladesh: Who were the Test Series Top Performers

South Africa were in fine form across their two match Test series against Bangladesh as they secured an impressive 2-0 series sweep to sign off the long-form action.

Indeed, wins by 220 runs and 332 runs shows just how powerful the home side were.

With such an impressive series win, bets.com.au have picked out our three best performers from the series, with the Proteas building up to a busy few months in all formats of the game.

Keshav Maharaj

What a series Keshav Maharaj had for South Africa, with his stunning performances against Bangladesh helping to see South Africa to a 2-0 series victory.

The spinning options will always prove to be the most but Maharaj took things to another level across the series as he returned exceptional figures.

The first Test saw Maharaj snare 7/32 in the second innings to see Bangladesh crumble, while he was even better in the second Test, taking 2/57 and then 7/40 to return figures of 9/97 in the match.

With a grand total of 16 of the available 40 wickets falling to Maharaj, the spinner’s performances had every single Bangladeshi batsman scratching their heads when it came to how to deal with him.

With a stunning summer of wickets and runs, capped off by a brilliant 84 in the second Test, Maharaj had a Test series that most players can only even dream about.

Dean Elgar

Dean Elgar continues to impress at the top of the order, with his knack of finding runs helping South Africa to build solid totals that their bowlers can then defend.

Excellent scores of 67 and 64 in the first Test were vital to the Proteas building good leads, while he scored these at fairly punchy rates too, with strike rates of over 60.00 in both innings.

In the second Test he was similarly hungry for runs, notching 70 and 26. His impressive consistency has seen Elgar provide fairly quick runs, but it will be a major target for the opener to see these scores turned into centuries more often than not.

Indeed, three totals of 60+ did not return one century. The best openers and players to have played the game have the ability to make big scores or, at the very least, notch three figures.

While Elgar has been superb against Bangladesh, there is room for improvement, and we are sure the opener will relish this.

Temba Bavuma

While Temba Bavuma was not quite as consistent as Elgar, he was able to provide a presence at number four that is hugely important to South Africa.

For some time now it has been widely agreed that opening the batting in Test cricket has become more difficult, with no opening partnerships in the world game really standing out right now.

This makes the ability of the batsmen at three and four to simply grind out runs, see off the new ball and play as auxiliary openers even more important.

For Bavuma, the idea that he is a goliath at four is not a tag that many would use, but his 93 from 190 in the first innings of the first Test was an exceptional show of patience and skill. He was similarly good in the first innings of the second Test too, with 67 from 162 frustrating Bangladesh.

Of course, it is worth noting that both of these scores came after South Africa had made good starts, but it is all too common in Test cricket that a good start only makes way for quick wickets to fall, with this culminating in a team underachieving when considering how they started.

Bavuma is a brilliant exponent of patient cricket, and his performances against Bangladesh are testament to his skill.