South Africa completed a comprehensive 3-0 trashing of Pakistan in the test series. Abbott picked up man of the match for his 9 wickets in the game on debut.

South Africa Vs Pakistan: Test 3 - Day 3: 

Toss: South Africa Won & Chose To Bat

Teams

Pakistan: Mohammad Hafeez, Imran Farhat, Azhar Ali, Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq*, Asad Shafiq, Sarfraz Ahmed†, Saeed Ajmal, Mohammad Irfan, Rahat Ali, Ehsan Adil

South Africa: GC Smith*, AN Petersen, HM Amla, F du Plessis, AB de Villiers†, KJ Abbott, D Elgar, VD Philander, RJ Peterson, DW Steyn, RK Kleinveldt


Day 3

Pakistan with their back against the wall came out to battle and survive the attack from the South Africans. The latter were though determined to finish this match today. 

Younis Khan and Azhar Ali managed to survive for a few overs in the morning, before the senior batsman of the two couldn’t keep out a beauty bowled by Dale Steyn. The ball swing from middle and off and there was little Younis Khan could do, aside from edge it to Graeme Smith at first slip.

In came Imran Farhat, who had not opened the innings yesterday, as he had some pain in his hand. That pain was nowhere to be seen this morning though, as he thrashed Steyn for a boundary on the second ball he faced in the innings. Both Azhar and Farhat battled, where the former was solid in defense and the latter had taken a more positive approach It took a bullet throw from Dale Steyn that caused Azhar Ali to be runout and break the partnership of 54 runs. 

Imran Farhat, Misbah-ul-Haq and Asad Shafiq all fell in quick succession. Farhat got out caught behind playing a loose shot. Misbah’s poor run of form continued, as he too edged one to De Villiers and Shafiq’s dismissal was a soft one as he spooned one to Philander at mid-off. 

At this point Pakistan was tottering along at 114/5 with little hope of avoiding an innings defeat. Ajmal and Sarfraz provided a little bit of joy for the Pakistani fans, as they batted with positive intent and in particular ripped into Dale Steyn! 

The pair managed to survive till tea and in the process also managed to amass some runs for Pakistan. After tea, the two batsmen tried to pick up from where they had left off, but it didn’t take long for Steyn to get Ajmal out LBW. 

Ehsan Adil and Sarfraz then showed a bit of resistance, but soon both were also seen back in the hut. At this point Pakistan was 202/9 and still needed to score 56 more runs to avoid an innings defeat. Rahat Ali and Irfan resisted for a while longer and frustrated the South Africans, but eventually Rahat got out to Petersen and Pakistan crashed to an innings defeat. 


Fall of Wickets

1-0 (Mohammad Hafeez, 0.1 ov)
2-39 (Younis Khan, 16.2 ovs)
3-93 (Azhar Ali, 38.2 ovs)
4-107 (Imran Farhat, 45.2 ovs)
5-107 (Misbah-ul-Haq, 46.6 ovs)
6-114 (Asad Shafiq, 48.6)
7-183 (Saeed Ajmal, 64.3)
8-202 (Sarfraz Ahmed, 68.6)
9-202 (Ehsan Adil, 69.2)
10-235 (Rahat Ali, 77.6)

Summary

Pakistan had a huge task ahead of them to get anything useful out of this test match. Imran Farhat and Azhar Ali showed a bit of resistance, but it was the partnership between Sarfraz and Ajmal that was the highlight of the innings. They showed that if you batted with positive intent then runs weren’t that hard to come. Nonetheless, South Africa was dominant through out the day and handed the cherry of an embarrassing innings defeat to Pakistan to put on top of the cake of a series whitewash.

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