My OperaThursday, November 28, 2013 10:16:06 AM
Pakistan beats Proteas
South Africa lost to visitors Pakistan by 1 run at St Georges Park yesterday in a rain affected match. The match was reduced to a 45 over match due to some time lost because of heavy rains early in the morning.
Celebrating their 500th match in ODIs since coming back to international cricket,the Proteas won the toss and elected to bowl first.Their strike bowler Dale Steyn did not disappoint his captain's decision to bowl first as he took the wicket of Nasir Jamshed in the first over.Jamshed lost his leg stump as Steyn uprooted it with a swinging ball. Steyn continued to shine as he took his regular wicket of Mohammed Hafeez. Hafeez has become a regular victim of Steyn in One Day Internationals.
Maqsood joined Shehzad and the two had a wonderful partnership until the former lost his wicket to McLaren for 42. Shehzad played well to get to his century and led his teammates to a respectable 262. Steyn ended with 6 wickets.
The South African innings started negatively with former captain Graeme Smith edging a Junaid Khan swinging ball to the keeper.Kallis joined Amla but he did not last as he too departed early without scoring much.The captain AB De Villiers came to join the impressive Amla and he played some entertaining cricket to score 74 off 45 balls.Much of the runs were scored in the batting powerplay and on one occasion the captain hit one out of the ground.As all this was happening Amla was taking singles forgetting that they were chasing some runs. When Amla lost his wicket with only 2runs left to his century it became interesting as the game was up for grabs to the one who had composure.
With only 6 runs needed off the last ball David Miller only managed to put it away for a 4 giving Pakistan a series win and their first ever in South Africa.The third and final match will be at the Centurion on Saturday.South Africa will play this game trying to avoid a white wash and regain some form before the arrival of the Indians next week.
South Africa lost to visitors Pakistan by 1 run at St Georges Park yesterday in a rain affected match. The match was reduced to a 45 over match due to some time lost because of heavy rains early in the morning.
Celebrating their 500th match in ODIs since coming back to international cricket,the Proteas won the toss and elected to bowl first.Their strike bowler Dale Steyn did not disappoint his captain's decision to bowl first as he took the wicket of Nasir Jamshed in the first over.Jamshed lost his leg stump as Steyn uprooted it with a swinging ball. Steyn continued to shine as he took his regular wicket of Mohammed Hafeez. Hafeez has become a regular victim of Steyn in One Day Internationals.
Maqsood joined Shehzad and the two had a wonderful partnership until the former lost his wicket to McLaren for 42. Shehzad played well to get to his century and led his teammates to a respectable 262. Steyn ended with 6 wickets.
The South African innings started negatively with former captain Graeme Smith edging a Junaid Khan swinging ball to the keeper.Kallis joined Amla but he did not last as he too departed early without scoring much.The captain AB De Villiers came to join the impressive Amla and he played some entertaining cricket to score 74 off 45 balls.Much of the runs were scored in the batting powerplay and on one occasion the captain hit one out of the ground.As all this was happening Amla was taking singles forgetting that they were chasing some runs. When Amla lost his wicket with only 2runs left to his century it became interesting as the game was up for grabs to the one who had composure.
With only 6 runs needed off the last ball David Miller only managed to put it away for a 4 giving Pakistan a series win and their first ever in South Africa.The third and final match will be at the Centurion on Saturday.South Africa will play this game trying to avoid a white wash and regain some form before the arrival of the Indians next week.
