Pakistan 75 for 5 (Masood 17*, Sarfraz 16*) v South Africa
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
South Africa’s pace bowlers struck hard and fast on the first morning of the Newlands Test match, as Pakistan’s batsmen struggled once again to find the necessary grit and resolve to counter a four-pronged attack that had been reinforced by the return from injury of Vernon Philander.
By lunch on the opening day, after Faf du Plessis opted to bowl first on a green-tinged pitch, Pakistan had slumped to xxx for x. Having twice failed to pass 200 in the first Test of the series at Centurion last week, there were few expectations of a lower-order rally from a rattled batting unit.
Despite those batting issues, Pakistan’s only change for this game had been a bowling one, with Mohammad Abbas returning in place of Hasan Ali – and how vital his incisive lines and lengths may be in his side’s hopes of a fightback with the ball.
But Pakistan’s show of faith in their misfiring batting order did not exactly reap rewards. They lost their first wicket in the fifth over of the morning when Fakhar Zaman was startled by a Dale Steyn bouncer and gloved a reflexive prod high up the air for Temba Bavuma to pouch at slip, and the tone for a dispiriting session had been established.
Philander, whose record at his home ground of Newlands is second to none, quickly settled into a threatening wicket-to-wicket line to Pakistan’s plethora of left-handers, and duly claimed his 50th wicket at the venue in just ten appearances when Imam-ul-Haq was adjudged lbw to a nipbacker that would have clipped the top of off stump.
And 13 for 2 quickly became 19 for 3 as Azhar Ali once again found no answer to his nemesis at Centurion, Duanne Olivier, whose nasty angled lift from a wide line thudded into his gloves and deflected to first slip, where Hashim Amla completed a comfortable catch in front of his nose.
Azhar might have been run out before that dismissal, when Shan Masood belatedly turned down a single to midwicket, but it was Masood and Asad Shafiq who briefly threatened to salvage the session for Pakistan in a fourth-wicket stand of 32 that spanned seven overs.
Masood nonchalantly swatted the extra pace of Kagiso Rabada over backward square for six, before Shafiq unleashed a stroke of similar intent against an Olivier lifter. But having brought up Pakistan’s fifty with back-to-back fours – one of which was a chancy inside-edge off Olivier – Shafiq became the fourth victim of the session, as Rabada fizzed a thunderbolt off his edge to Dean Elgar at third slip.
One over later, Babar Azam had joined the procession, as he attempted to drop his hands to Olivier but instead offered catching practice to du Plessis in the cordon. Sarfraz Ahmed and Masood countered with some intent in a sixth-wicket stand of 21 but the damage to the innings had been done.
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