Marco Janssen took 6 wickets in the second innings
In the Centurion Test, Pakistan were bowled out for 237 runs in their second innings. The team was behind by 90 runs in the first innings, so South Africa got a target of 148 runs. At the end of the third day’s play, the team scored 27 runs after losing 3 wickets.
If South Africa win the first Test, the team will reach the World Test Championship (WTC) 2025 final. After that, only the second team place remains to be decided, for which there is a battle between India, Australia and Sri Lanka.
Babar scored a fifty
Play started late on the third day due to rain. Pakistan started at 88/3, Babar Azam led the innings with 16 runs and Saud Shakeel opened with 8 runs. Both took the score close to 150 and Babar scored a fifty. He was caught off the bowling of Marco Janssen for 50 runs.
As soon as Babar left, Pakistan lost a lot of wickets
Pakistan were 153/4 at the time of Babar’s wicket, the team lost the next 4 wickets for 56 runs. Saud Shakeel stood at one end, but no batsman could stand at the opposite end. Mohammad Rizwan 3, Salman Agha 1 and Aamer Jamal scored 18 runs. Shakeel was dismissed after scoring 84 runs.
Naseem Shah and Mohammad Abbas could not even open an account. Khurram Shahzad scored 9 runs. Marco Jansen took 6 wickets from South Africa. Kagiso Rabada got 2 wickets. Dan Patterson and Corbin Bosh took 1 wicket each.
South Africa lost 3 wickets
Against a target of 148 runs, South Africa got off to a very poor start. The team lost 3 wickets in just 19 runs. Tony DeGeorge was out for 2 and Tristan Stubbs was out for 1, Ryan Rickleton also failed to open the account. Mohammad Abbas took 2 wickets. Khurram Shahzad got 1 wicket. Aiden Markram and Temba Bavuma remained not out at stumps, leaving the team 121 runs short of the target.
South Africa lead by 90 runs on the second day
South Africa scored 301 runs in the first innings on the second day. Aiden Markram scored 89 runs and Corbin Bosch played an innings of 81 runs for the team. With South Africa 213 for 8, Bosh combined with the rest of the batsmen to give the team a 90-run lead.
Pakistan could score only 211 runs on the first day
Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat on Thursday, but the team could not capitalize on the opportunity. Kamran Ghulam scored 54 runs, the rest of the batsmen could not score more than 30 runs. The team were restricted to 211 runs, with Dan Patterson taking 5 wickets.
Image Credit: Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).