'You never know; we're hoping; it happens'

It took a follow-on to be enforced and a deficit of 419 runs at the end of the second day for Liton Das to admit that Bangladesh were on the back foot and that they were not likely to gain something from the match. After the fourth day of the first Test when Bangladesh were 49 for three in chase of 424, Liton would not admit that fact, preferring bluster to honesty. But yesterday his admission of Bangladesh's imperilled and highly disadvantaged position and his 70 in the Tigers' abject 147 all out were the only embers in a dark day for Bangladesh cricket.

But those admissions were about all that were realistic in Liton's press conference; otherwise it was consistent with most of Bangladesh players' utterances on tour so far – divorced from the ground realities. If the bluster was less yesterday, it was only because there was very little to find to be stand-offish or arrogant about.

"No one hopes for this," Liton said when asked to sum up the performance where Bangladesh were bundled out for 147 inside 43 overs after conceding 573 for four from 120 overs. "We are a good team and we can play better than this, but a lot of things happen in cricket, you have to accept it."

The detachment from reality reared its head when pressed further to give reasons for the debacle.

"We lost a lot of early wickets and [Temba] Bavuma took a good catch [of Mushfiqur Rahim]. If you see, often a catch like that changes the momentum. Mushy bhai is a very good batsman for Bangladesh, has been playing well for the last few years. If someone catches and dismisses a player like that, it creates a lot of pressure."

But that was only one wicket, whereas all of the other batsmen were out playing shots. Was the pitch too difficult?

"No, it was nothing like that. As I said, you only need one ball to get out. Sometimes you make mistakes. You have to understand that we have come here after 10 years. We are not used to playing in these conditions.              

"Although it is not right to give an excuse like that, but even so it is in the back of our minds. Maybe we just couldn't do it. We are a better team than this, hopefully next innings we will play better."

His press conference was filled with terms like 'you never know', 'we are hoping', etc. It reflected the mind of a player, and beyond him, a team, who are merely hopeful of avoiding utter embarrassment. That embarrassment becomes even deeper when it is considered that captain Mushfiqur won the toss in both matches. It did not take long for Liton to take a complete flight of fancy, when at the end of the five-minute presser he was asked if they could avoid an innings defeat.

"The result has not happened yet. So of course we are in the match, let's see, maybe tomorrow we can make a strong comeback. You never know.

"Target is very big now, as we are now on the back foot," he said.

"So we will try to do as well as possible. Something like that may end up happening, that from here one of our batsmen may score 200. That is not something impossible. Maybe we can score 600 in the second innings. So then they will have to bat again. We are hoping, hopefully tomorrow we can play well."

At least he seems to think that defeat cannot be avoided, only the outside chance of South Africa batting again. But then again, you never know.