From Centurion to Rawalpindi, the story remains the same — South Africa’s lower-order batters thrive while Pakistan’s strategy withers in the heat
Danyal Rasool22-Oct-2025″Shaheen bhai,” Shan Masood, Pakistan’s Test captain, hollered out from short midwicket to Shaheen Shah Afridi, Pakistan’s newly appointed ODI captain, stationed at long-on. He motioned for him to come up, challenging the newly arrived Kagiso Rabada, to take Sajid Khan on. The offspinner tossed it up to Rabada, who sat himself down on one knee, smiting it over Shaheen’s head over mid-on, flying well over the vacant long-on position Shaheen had been summoned up from. It was a microcosm of a madcap two hours in which South Africa’s tail toyed with Pakistan’s bowlers, laying any fielding plans – pedestrian as they increasingly began to look – to waste.Masood must be sick of the sight of South Africa’s lower order, and it’s something that clearly occupies space in his head. Moments after wrapping up a comfortable win in Lahore last week, he spoke to the press, having memorised to the run the difference between Pakistan and South Africa’s contributions from lower down. Pakistan, he said, had lost 11-33 across their two innings, referencing their batting collapses, while South Africa had found ways of adding 8-79. It is in keeping with recent trends; South Africa have the highest average contribution for their last four since the start of that Test, numbers 8-11 averaging over 28.Related
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But while it was natural natural to reference where improvements needed to be made, that level of detail showed how much it worried Masood.
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It felt that any such concern might be overblown this morning. Pakistan had laid their trap and set the template, one they followed to a tee in the first session, scything through South Africa after breaking the one stand that showed resistance overnight. Wickets may have all come to the old ball, with Shaheen, who Pakistan rate as their best exponent of reverse, among their ranks, but it was fine. Noman Ali, at 39 suddenly upstaged by the comparatively sprightly 38-year-old Asif Afridi, got rid of Marco Jansen anyway. Senuran Muthuswamy had just played a similar reverse sweep that went for four, but surely it could only mean his wicket was imminent.But Pakistan, and Masood in particular, know exactly the dangers that lie with this South African side. It’s the late October warmth of the dying days of summer in Rawalpindi, but for the way in which the afternoon unfolded, we might still have been at the height of the South African summer in December last year. At Supersport Park in the first Test last year, Pakistan had strung together an excellent morning session to rattle through South Africa’s middle. On that day, it was debutant Corbin Bosch alongside Rabada, and later Dane Paterson, who added 90 for the last two wickets to hand South Africa a 90-run lead.Kagiso Rabada and Senuran Muthusamy added 98 runs for the last wicket to frustrate Pakistan•AFP/Getty ImagesWhen Pakistan had South Africa eight down once more in the fourth innings, with South Africa still well adrift, the ever-present Rabada teamed up with Marco Jansen to breeze through an unbeaten 51-run partnership that sealed the win, as well as a berth in the World Test Championship final. Sound familiar?Yet, armed with that knowledge, Pakistan appeared to be spectators to their own disembowelment. Once Keshav Maharaj and Muthuswamy began to counterattack, Pakistan’s initial reaction was somewhat muted, as if South Africa might be throwing a temporary tantrum they would quell by default. Rizwan missed a fairly straightforward stumping and Asif missed a return catch, and all the while, the runs came thick and fast.Rizwan had the chance to make amends, knocking off the bails when Maharaj ventured out after lunch, but by now, South Africa had crossed 300, having bitten all but 27 out of Pakistan’s first innings. It was then that Pakistan appeared to have settled on Rabada as the weak link, bringing up the field for him, hoping to deprive Muthuswamy, by now past his half-century, of the strike. Until that Rabada six.It’s hard to say whether the next hour is best viewed in slow motion or on a time lapse camera. The field shifted in and out as the umpires meandered between ends. At one point, the only fielders not on the boundary to either batter were a solitary slip and one fielder either square either side. There was, even when the odd fielder came up, plenty of space for South Africa to rotate the strike, and yet, even with the field pushed back, little to hold them back from finding gaps or clearing the fence.That grand overview may be appropriately damning for an effectively passive Pakistan, but it didn’t do justice to the workshop Rabada was putting on. For all the easy grace his bowling has become associated with, it is perhaps with the blade that his glorious elegance is on full display. The gap between his Test average of 11 and the silkiness of his strokeplay is the strongest rebuttal to analysing games by numbers alone. At one point, he planted his back foot and lifted a Shaheen delivery off the bottom half of his bat straight over his head into the sightscreen. Slighted, Shaheen went inswinging yorker next, which Rabada carved through the covers with the flourish of a painter signing off his masterpiece. No camera is slow enough to appreciate that majesty.Muthuswamy, well set by then, had the best view of it from the other end. “He’s such a naturally free-flowing batter. KG was exemplary. It was an innings of the highest standard. The ball striking in those conditions was superb. I ended up playing a bit of a supporting role as the innings went on because he was just seeing it so nicely and hitting it so clean. It was a fantastic partnership and yeah, one that we’ll remember and hopefully can put us into a really strong position tomorrow to win the game.”Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam took Pakistan to stumps•Getty ImagesFor Pakistan, though, that Centurion Test offers an uncomfortable bookend to this one. Masood has consistently bemoaned lost opportunities from promising situations, with that Test a constant example to denote an experience his side has learned from. Yet today, when the momentum began to turn in those final two partnerships, the strategic stagnation from Pakistan was palpable; the only dismissal they sought was one which came off an error from a South African bat.Asif, Pakistan’s best bowler in the morning, unwittingly lay bare the tactics forlornness behind Pakistan’s approach that afternoon. Ever since the ninth wicket fell, he had not been called on to bowl for another 15 overs, by which time the partnership had added 86 more runs.”They were left-handed batters and I am a left-arm spinner, too,” Asif said. “So Shan said let’s go with offspin and it might give us a chance. They were playing in a way that it was probably easier for them to hit left-arm spin.”Three overs into Asif’s spell, Rabada finally slogged one to long-on, which had not come up against him since that six off his innings’ fifth ball. By then, his runs tally numbered 71, also exactly the amount South Africa led by. It had come 169 runs after Pakistan had left South Africa in the dust, eight wickets down and nearly 100 runs adrift. It is just 103 fewer than Pakistan’s numbers 8 to 11 have scored in six Tests since the start of that Centurion Test; they place rock bottom on that table, averaging 8.77, the only team with a single-digit average for their final four.Those runs had seemed to melt into South Africa’s total so easily, but 37 balls later, Pakistan found themselves three wickets down, the irrepressible Rabada and Harmer doing the damage. As the runs curdled, it was increasingly obvious scoring was never as easy as Rabada and Muthuswamy had made it look, and, indeed, been allowed to make it look.